It has been almost a month since we last showed you the albatrosses on Española. Today these chicks have grown into healthy juveniles ready to leave the island. We see them week after week and follow up on their behavior. This young bird is looking out to the cliffs, studying the wind currents and perhaps thinking on how life will be out there. It will have to fly several hundred miles until it reaches the coasts of Peru and Chile where the Humboldt Current brings nutrients to its surface.
We took a couple of minutes watching it practice its flight, taking little jumps with its wings stretched out as if it was thinking "One of these days I´ll be ready." It will sure be ready soon because by the end of the December they will be all gone and we will not see them perhaps for another three years when they will be ready for a mate. Hopefully they will return to the island as healthy as we see them today.