LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Scientists on a research vessel off the central California coast spotted a waved albatross, marking just the second recorded sighting of the bird north of Central America. <\/p>\n
The yellow-billed bird with black button eyes, which can have an 8-foot (2.4-meter) wingspan and spends much of its life airborne over the ocean, also came with a mystery: Researchers wonder how and why a species known to breed in the Galapagos Islands \u2014 roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) away \u2014 ventured so far north.<\/p>\n
To scientists, it\u2019s a \u201cvagrant\u201d bird, one traveling far outside its typical range. It was spotted 23 miles (37 kilometers) off the coast of Point Piedras Blancas, roughly midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The adult bird \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem to be in a hurry to get back south,\u201d said marine ornithologist Tammy Russell, who was on board the vessel and noted that the same bird apparently was spotted in October<\/a> off the Northern California coast.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t even believe what I saw,\u201d Russell wrote on Facebook. \u201cI\u2019m still in shock.\u201d <\/p>\n Russell, a contract scientist with the Farallon Institute and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said it\u2019s all but impossible to determine why the bird ended up so far from its home.<\/p>\n It could have been driven north by a storm. Some birds have a rambling spirit and just go farther than others. <\/p>\n \u201cIt likely didn\u2019t breed last season because adults lay their egg in spring and the chicks leave the nests by January,\u201d Russell said in an email. \u201cPerhaps it went wandering on its year off and will soon return to the Galapagos to be reunited with its mate for the next season?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho knows how long it will stay around or if it will ever return?\u201d Russell added. \u201cBut that\u2019s why these sightings are so special.\u201d<\/p>\n Marshall Iliff, eBird project leader at Cornell University\u2019s Lab of Ornithology, said seabirds such as albatrosses can travel great distances in search of food.<\/p>\n \u201cThe odd individual routinely may turn up far from home, even in the wrong hemisphere or exceptionally in the wrong ocean,\u201d Iliff said via email. \u201cFood shortages could prompt a bird to wander, but a single bird could also be a fluke accident. There is no evidence at this point that this is anything but a fluke.\u201d<\/p>\n The International Union for Conservation of Nature<\/a> calls the bird \u2014 the largest in the Galapagos \u2014 critically endangered. According to the American Bird Conservancy<\/a>, its range is restricted to the tropics. It nests on lava fields amid scattered boulders and sparse vegetation.<\/p>\n The life span of the birds can reach 45 years. They feed primarily on fish, squid and crustaceans.<\/p>\n