Layson Albatross In-Flight - Midway Island, North Pacific

We just arrived here last night on our way to Hawaii. It's normal for this time of the year for visiting aircraft to land at night. I can attest it's for good reason. The reason being birds just like this albatross. Between November and March every year, there are millions of Layson and Blackfooted Albatross breeding on Midway. Even now, two weeks in to the "bird season", there are several hundred thousand I'm told. The peak is still to happen. I'm amazed because it seems every flat spot on the island except for the roads seem to be stacked out by one or two birds already. I can't imagine there being three times as many in a few weeks. I guess I'll get to experience that first hand when we come back through here in the middle of December.

Just a quick comment on this one image of this one bird. It was shot using my Nikon D3--my primary wildlife camera--using a very old 180mm f/2.8 Nikon lens I have. The lens isn't the fastest. It's not the sharpest. But is sure is good in both those departments while still being really really small. Despite it's 30 year old technology, the lens seems to have done quite fine in this one instance.

One other thing about this image and Layson Albatross. They aren't very shy. In fact, they seem to have little to any concerns with creatures with two legs. Birds never seems to have any concerns with taking off right next to a standing human. They would be so close as you could simply reach out and touch them. Of course, not every fly-by was that close. But, there were plenty to see and take advantage of just like this image.

Cheers

Tom