Wiki User August 18, 2014 7:01PM. Share this item Albatross taking off Next. Renowned ocean wanderers, royal albatross travel vast distances from their breeding grounds to feed – as much as 190,000 km a year. Once a chick leaves the nest and heads to open waters, it won't return to land for three to five years, when it is ready to find a mate. It can cross oceans for breakfast. It is not right to blame the bird if you don't know how to cook. No. The part your friend may have skimmed over in that article is that the albatross lands on the water (like most seabirds) during that time. Many commercial jets cannot do that! They run into a head wind – the stronger the wind, the easier it will be. Because of their tameness on land, many albatrosses are known by the common names mollymawk (from the Dutch for “foolish gull”) and gooney. They still need to dive to the water to get fish, they land and float in the water to rest, and they need to return to land … About Albatross Encounter Kaikoura is one of the best places in the world to see a variety of albatross close to shore! Because they’re so big and spend almost all of their lives in flight, Wandering Albatrosses have almost no natural predators. The part your friend may have skimmed over in that article is that the albatross lands on the water (like most seabirds) during that time. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are in a subclass called amphibious aircraft . To take off from land, great albatrosses need a long runway. These long-lived birds have reached a documented 50 years of age. In 2005, it was found that a grey-headed albatross had flown 13,670 miles around the world in the Southern Hemisphere in 46 days. The albatross habitat is 30 million square miles in the area of southern oceanic waters, between 30 and 60 degrees south latitude. The laysan albatross only comes to land to breed. Here the land occupies very little space – it is the tip of South America, the island of Tasmania and New Zealand. They spend at least 85% of their lives at sea returning to land (usually remote islands) to breed and raise their young. If there is no wind the bird must run and flap for quite a while in order to become airborne. Royal albatross range throughout the Southern Ocean and are most commonly seen in New Zealand coastal waters during winter. Albatross breed on sub-Antarctic islands because there are no predators there. It's true they can stay out at sea for a long time, and can soar incredibly long distances, but they do rest. They can also launch off a cliff edge if the wind is blowing into the cliff. They still need to dive to the water to get fish, they land and float in the water to rest, and they need to return to land if they intend to mate and raise young. They are rarely seen on land and gather only to breed, at which time they form large colonies on remote islands. Returned bands show young birds and nonbreeders migrate to southern South American waters and back to New Zealand. An albatross is the grandest living flying machine on the Earth . Birds barely need to sleep, and when they do they are generally able to sleep with half their brain at a time. “Companies are not required to actually ditch an airliner as part of its certification testing but they will do theoretical assessments. Do albatross's live in Antarctica? No animal lives in Antarctica. They fly and sometimes paddle while flying just above the sea/ocean ,just touching the water surface to catch the fish like seagulls,pelicans do. Nothing has an infinite supply of energy, so it can't just stay up. Do aircrafts have to test-land their new planes on water? That’s like flying non-stop from Houston, Texas to Perth, Australia. Do albatrosses sleep while flying? No. Albatross are the world's largest seabirds. Apparently, most albatrosses sleep while gliding in the air. Biologists who fitted GPS trackers to the aptly named wandering albatross have discovered that these large birds can travel at least 15,000 km (just under 10,000 miles) over the sea before returning to land. Birds have been banded on Campbell Island since the early 1940s. Breeding.