Hi Mick,
When I was regularly sea-watching off Maroubra between 1995 and 2005, I
noticed the same phenomenon. I counted many thousands of albatrosses over
those years, and when I created a 'time-of-day' chart, there was a very
marked peak in Yellow-nosed Albatrosses in the afternoon, around 4.
Black-broweds, in contrast, peaked in the late morning, and declined
through the afternoon. The other regular albatrosses, Wandering and Shy,
showed no marked variation in numbers across the day. This pattern was
consistent over the whole ten years.
My guess was that Yellow-nosed, as the smallest albatrosses, couldn't
compete for food - especially the dying squid - against the three larger
albatrosses, and there weren't enough Wanderers or Shys to see off the
middle-sized Black-brows.
By the way, I sent a long message a few days ago to the list on David
Adams' message calling for responses on albatrosses from land, but it
didn't get through, maybe because I'm not a subscriber to birding-aus. I
could resend it if there's interest.
Rod
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