Family Diomedeidae

Black-browed Albatross

Status One sight record. A single bird, well-described, was sighted in Cabot Strait some 50 km northeast of Sydney on 15 July 1983 by David E. Wolf and Bret Whitney from the ferry between Sydney and Argentia, Newfoundland. An unidentified albatross skimming through Petit Passage, the narrow strait between Long Island and the peninsula of Digby Neck, was seen briefly by Wickerson Lent on 14 August 1970. It could have been this bird or a Yellow-nosed Albatross.

Remarks Albatrosses are birds of the trackless oceans, and most species are normally confined to the Southern Hemisphere. The huge adults of this species, with wingspans of 2.3 m, have white heads, necks, rumps and underparts, and dark upperparts. Their underwings are broadly bordered by black and their bills are largely yellow, differing in these respects from the Yellow-nosed Albatross. The nearest breeding grounds of the Black-browed Albatross are in the Falkland Islands, and there are only a few North American records, though it is more regular than the Yellow-nosed in the eastern North Atlantic.