Albatross, Most romantic Courtship ritual

Albatrosses

Albatrosses are very large seabirds in the family Diomedeidae. They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific.

Flying

Albatrosses are the most efficient travelers of all vertebrates on the planet. They expend very little energy soaring hundreds of miles over the ocean each day using dynamic soaring and slope soaring. They have a tendon in each shoulder locking their wings fully-extended, so once aloft and soaring across a fair breeze they never need to flap their wings.

Courting Ritual and Dancing

Albatrosses reach sexual maturity slowly, after about five years, but even once they have reached maturity, they do not begin to breed for another few years (even up to 10 years for some species).

Young non-breeders attend a colony prior to beginning to breed, spending many years practicing the elaborate breeding rituals and "dances" for which the family is famous.Birds arriving back at the colony for the first time already have the stereotyped behaviors that compose albatross language, but can neither "read" that behavior as exhibited by other birds nor respond appropriately.After a period of trial and error learning, the young birds learn the syntax and perfect the dances. This language is mastered more rapidly if the younger birds are around older birds.

The repertoire of behavior involves synchronized performances of various actions such as preening, pointing, calling, bill clacking, staring, and combinations of such behaviors (such as the sky-call).When a bird first returns to the colony, it dances with many partners, but after a number of years, the number of interactions drops, until one partner is chosen and a pair is formed. They then continue to perfect an individual language that will eventually be unique to that one pair. Having established a pair bond that will last for life, however, most of that dance will never be used again.

Albatrosses are held to undertake these elaborate and painstaking rituals to ensure that the appropriate partner has been chosen and to perfect partner recognition.

Myth: Albatrosses are souls of lost sailors

A widespread myth holds that sailors believe shooting or harming an albatross is disastrous, due in part to the poem; as reported by James Cook in 1772. However, other sailors reportedly caught the birds but let them free again, possibly believing that albatrosses were the souls of lost sailors, so killing them would bring bad luck.

Albatross; a metaphor for poet

The poet is like this prince of the clouds,

who haunts the storm and mocks the archer;

but exiled on earth surrounded by jeers,

his giant wings make him helpless to walk.

watch the courtship dance here