Young albatross fledged, more to follow

This video says about itself:

Kalama Catches Some Serious Wind in Kauai – June 14, 2017

The Kauai Laysan Albatross cam is a collaboration between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Kauai Albatross Network.

Watch live with news, updates, and FAQs at http://allaboutbirds.org/albatross.

The first egg at the Laysan Albatross cam site on the North Shore of Kauai hatched on January 24, just in time for the cam to go live! If everything proceeds normally, we expect the young albatross to fledge near the end of June.

This year’s nest features Mahealani and Pilialoha, a female-female pair that spent time incubating an infertile egg on camera last year. Female-female pairs are relatively common in albatross colonies, and their commonness can change with the availability of suitable male mates and the success of prior nesting attempts. This year one of the females in this pair has again laid an infertile egg.

This year, however, several organizations involved in the conservation and management of albatrosses replaced the infertile egg with a fertile one from the Pacific Rim Missile Facility.

Not only the young red-tailed hawk in the bald eagle nest has fledged this week.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the USA:

Kalama the Laysan Albatross Chick Fledges!

Kalama, star of the 2017 Kauai Laysan Albatross cam, fledged in the early morning on June 29, taking wing over the Pacific Ocean for the first time!

It’s been a long journey for the young bird. She’s spent the past six months developing her soaring, 6.5–foot wingspan in preparation for this moment. In the weeks before fledging, viewers watched her exercise her wings, flutter in gusts of wind, and practice taking off down the colony runway. Kalama will spend the next 3–5 years foraging over the Pacific Ocean before returning to the breeding colony, where she’ll learn how to court, look for a mate, and eventually begin nesting. Fly high Kalama!

Meanwhile, three other chicks—Pu’u, Dos Mamas, and Kolohe—are still within view and preparing to fledge. Interestingly, all four chicks are egg-relocation success stories and were raised by female/female pairs. Don’t miss their final moments on the island!