Wp/nys/Wool-wool (Yellow-nosed Albatross)

Wool-wool

Wool-wool (Noongar LOTE wer Kongal-boyal) is a large ocean going seabird in the albatross family, called in English the Yellow-nosed Albatross. Its scientific name is Thalassarche carteri.

Its specific English name is the Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross, to differentiate it from the Atlantic Yellow-nosed albatross (Thalassarche chlororhynchos). Not everyone agrees that the birds should be split into two species.

Albatrosses are highly efficient in the air, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring to cover great distances with little exertion. They feed on squid, fish and krill by either scavenging, surface seizing or diving. Albatrosses are colonial, nesting for the most part on remote oceanic islands, often with several species nesting together. Pair bonds between males and females form over several years, with the use of "ritualised dances", and will last for the life of the pair. A breeding season can take over a year from laying to fledging, with a single egg laid in each breeding attempt. A Laysan albatross, named Wisdom, on Midway Island is recognised as the oldest wild bird in the world.

Wool-wool breeds on Prince Edward Islands, the Crozet Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Amsterdam Island (on the Falaises d'Entrecasteaux) and St Paul Islands in the Indian Ocean. When feeding during incubation, birds will forage up to 1500|km from the colony. At sea it ranges from South Africa to the Pacific Ocean just beyond New Zealand, ranging from 30° S to 50° S.