Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 3 A breeding pair of albatrosses' 'love dance' in space and time, where blue indicates the
male and red indicates the female bird
May, 1996. During the incubation period, the female bird (depicted by the red line)
made a 9-day foraging trip westward into the Tasman Sea returning to the nest on
26th of March where her male partner waited (blue line). The male bird then
started a long foraging trip towards the northeast of the Snares Islands. During the
hatching stage, both partners performed synchronized returns and departures, i.e.,
when one was foraging, the other guarded the nest. These trips were higher in
speed and shorter in length than during the incubation period, except for one long
excursion by the male bird during the middle of this period. When entering the
intermittent guard stage (c. 21st April) brooding periods became discontinuous,
and both birds spent most of the time searching for food northeast of the Snares.
The male was the last to brood, ending this stage with a day-long stint on the nest
on the 28th of April. During the post-guard stage, the female bird tended to
undergo longer distance and duration trips than the male, and both partners spent
