The Count

Every year there is an albatross count on Midway in which volunteers count all the nest on the atoll. How do you count every nest on an atoll, because as you can imagine there are a lot of them?

One at a time.

A team of approximately 10-15 volunteers fly themselves out to Midway for 2-3 weeks around Christmas and New Years every year and count every Albatross nest on the Atoll.

They acomplish this task by dividing the islands into different sectors. They walk each sector in lines and mark each nest with an orange dot which they spray paint on the ground by the nest after they count it.
They leave the place looking kind of like this:

This year they counted 428,090 Laysan Albatross nests (up 7% from last year) and 23,722 Blackfooted Albatross nest (down 1% from last year). Now it is important to note that the count only considers active nests. Nests have already failed this year. Each nest accounts for at least 2 parents, but occasionally a nest will have three birds tending to it.

Also one should note that is unlikely that there are 7% more Laysan Albatross than last year. Instead, we should note that there are only 7% more breading. Albatross are log lived birds, breading into their 60's and possibly longer. Because they are such long lived birds and breeding and raising a chick is such a high energy investment, any individual may or may not breed two years in a row. Thus a high number of breeding bird may be a better indicator of conditions at sea (one's ability to obtain plenty of food), than of the actual number of adult albatross.

This is why I am out here. My volunteer team is responsible for resighting over 3000 individual albatross, which are identifiable by metal and plastic band on their legs, in order to determine the likely hood of any individual returning year to year. Our data, when combined with the count data is what will ultimately give us an idea about the stability of the albatross populations.