Dance Fever!

Wow, today was a great day here at Midway. For seven years a single male Short-tailed Albatross has been coming here during breeding season and staking out his territory waiting for a female friend to show up. Short-tails are one of the rarest albatrosses in the world and easily the most endangered seabird in the Pacific. Other Short-tails have been sighted here in the past but none have stuck around like this guy has. Well, the big fella must have dusted off his mojo because he has finally scored a lady (well, we think it's a lady anyway). A sub-adult Short-tailed Albatross was seen hanging out with him on Friday so I got a few people together and we went to the neighboring island (where he hangs out) to see if his friend was still around. We weren't prepared for what we saw. The two of them were getting into it, doing their full courtship dance for us. It went on for about twenty minutes and I was blown away. These birds are so rare that few people have seen them at a nesting colony and even fewer (a handful at most) have been fortunate enough to see their courtship dance in all it's glory.