Holy Moli!

The last place I might expect to find the Laysan Albatross nesting is on a golf course in an upscale resort community on Kauai, but that's where we found a small colony of birds today. Of course, the public isn't allowed on the course, but since we are staying at the Makai Club, associated with the Makai Golf Course in Princeville, we could join a caravan of about 20 golf carts for a sunset tour of the course. The holes all looked the same to me, green with sand traps, but in 2 or 3 places, a hole overlooked the ocean.

 The threatened Nene goose seems quite happy to live on the course, grazing on the short grass.

I was astounded to find a small breeding colony of albatross at Ocean Hole 6 and 7. (Moli is their Hawaiian name). They are a large bird, with a wingspan of six feet or more, and can weigh up to 22 pounds, although the male is bigger than the female.The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (meaning Midway and Laysan) are home to 99.7% of the population.The Laysan albatross is colonial, nesting on scattered small islands and atolls, often in huge numbers, and builds different styles of nests depending on the surroundings, ranging from simple scoops in the sand to nests using vegetation. Laysan albatrosses have a protracted breeding cycle. They breed annually, although some birds skip years. They eat fish and squid, usually at night when the food rises to the surface, flying to Alaska to feed after the breeding season.

Juvenile birds return to the colony three years after fledging, but do not mate for the first time until seven or eight years old. During these four or five years they form pair bonds with a mate that they will keep for life. Courtship entails especially elaborate 'dances' that have up to 25 ritualized movements.

The breeding season is from November to June, and the rest of the year they spend at sea. The albatross can take advantage of air currents just above the ocean waves to soar for hours or days without flapping its wings. They do rest on the water to feed or sleep, but have been know to sleep while flying to avoid predators.

Both parents take turns incubating their single egg for almost two months before it hatches. As we gathered around the birds, this adult stared us squarely in the eyes and boldly walked through the crowd of admiring people, headed to his chick hidden under a tree behind us. When you only get one chick at a  time, you have to take extra good care of it.

We watched this chick tapping his parent's beak until she finally opened her mouth and regurgitated something for it to eat. An albatross named Wisdom hatched in or around 1951. In 1956, at the estimated age of five, she was tagged by scientists at Midway Atoll. The USGS have tracked Wisdom since she was tagged, and they have logged that Wisdom has flown over three million miles since 1956. To accommodate her increasing longevity, the USGS has replaced her tag a total of six times. In December, 2016, Wisdom (at the approximate age of 66) hatched and reared another chick. In December 2017, she was breeding again. Most albatrosses lay every other year, but Wisdom has successfully hatched a chick every year since 2006.