An Observation of Live Prey Capture by a Black - Browed Albatross

There are few observations of albatrosses capturing live prey at sea, prompting speculation as to the methods and timing of Furthermore, in the Black-browed Albatross Diomedea mela-nophrys most observations of feeding relate to fish or squid captured in the vicinity of fishing vessels whilst conducting bird observations on the RRS Bransfield at about 48°04'S, 57°21'W, en route from the Falkland Islands to Montevideo, an adult-plumaged Black-browed Albatross was seen to plunge dive from 3 m and seize a silvery-white eel-like fish about 30 cm in length, from just below the surface. Upon capture the fish wrapped itself around the bird's head and neck, wriggling constantly, and shortly afterwards the albatross took off with the fish. It was pursued by several other Black-browed Alba-trosses until out of sight. The prey was captured during daylight , and the total time spent on the water was about two minutes ; the entire sequence from the initial dive to flying out of sight lasted no more than five minutes. The bird had previously been following the ship in the company of 10–20 Black-browed Albatrosses, all except three of which were subadults of 2–3 years (Prince & Rodwell 1994). Although this bird was following the ship, encountering this particular prey was incidental and occurred some 20 m away from the side of the vessel. The technique used was categorized by Harper et al. (1985) as 'surface plunging' and has been previously recorded for this species when scavenging dead fish (Prince 1980) and feeding at krill swarms (Harrison et al. 1981), although there are no published observations of the capture of live fish. The behaviour of the other members of the group in rushing in and attempting to seize the prey is consistent with previous observations of the feeding behaviour of Black-browed Albatrosses around trawlers and with the aggressive roles reported from multispecies feeding assemblages (Harrison et al. The elongate shape, behaviour and colour of this fish strongly suggest that it was a lamprey Geotria australis, which has been recorded as an infrequent prey species of Black-browed Alba-trosses from South Georgia (Prince 1980, Reid et al. in press). Possible alternatives are barracudinas (Paralepididae) or eelcod (Muraenolepidae), both of which are much less flexible and would be unable to wrap around the bird's head (A.W. North pers. comm.). Eels are the only other species occurring in the region of similar shape, but they are mainly benthic, darker …