Em and I have just returned from our weekly trip to Gonydale to monitor our colony of 160 Tristan Albatrosses. And it was a particularly special visit as we discovered our first chicks of the season!
Our wonderful Gony parents have been taking it in turns to incubate their large, white eggs for the last two and a half months. The chick will now be brooded for the next few weeks and then guarded for a further week until it is large enough to defend itself against potential avian predators.
It will take these chicks up to nine months to fledge. Indeed, it was only a couple of months ago when we saw the last youngster fledge from Gonydale from the previous season, a chick which hatched in the autumn of 2016.
We both had fairly mixed feelings as we wandered around the colony, as many of these chicks will not survive to fledging due to the introduced House Mice on the island. It is amazing to think what will happen to the population of this Critically Endangered species should the planned mouse eradication in winter 2019 prove successful. Gonydale does seem to fare better than some of the other Tristan areas on the island, so fingers crossed a good number of the 21 chicks we discovered will still be around for the Gough 63 team come the count this September.
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| Showing off its egg (David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| Starting to hatch! (David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| Almost out.....(David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| One happy family (David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| Just hatched (David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| Just days old (David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| Huh!? (Em Witcutt) |
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| Exhausted! (David Kinchin-Smith) |
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| A chick in September (David Kinchin-Smith) |
David
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