A couple of days ago the father at our first nest had an unwelcome visitor.
Scram!
This is MY baby!
And when reasoning seemed to fail….
SHRIEK!!
The visitor was KP729, the female he left for his current mate. She eventually sat down about four feet away from the nest, and he stopped displaying at her. He left her two years ago and she has not found another mate, although I sometimes see her displaying with other birds. She often visits other albatrosses at their nests. She was a good parent when she was nesting with KP505, I hope she finds another good mate.
I would like to point out that KP505 is not a bad guy, he’s an albatross. He lives his life based on instinct, and we cannot attribute human motivations to him. I admit, I may joke about his choice to disobey the “albatrosses mate for life” rule that they are all supposed to abide by, but I respect the fact that he follows his own albatross path, not one that we humans have determined they must all follow.
I would also like to add that two of his children are currently raising chicks, less than a block away from his nest!
My Albatross Diary 
Love the tale of generations. I hope all is well for all you’ve mentioned. Thanks again.
Great information about the generations and the “mate for life” rule. Thanks to your regular monitoring, we are learning new things about these birds all the time. Good work.
Great sequence of photos, Cathy. Thanks for capturing another fascinating moment.
Interestingly, yesterday I saw KP729 visiting at another neighborhood nest, but in that case the parent and chick both simply ignored him. Neither seemed in the slightest perturbed as he stood (very) close beside their nest and watched them for several minutes without exchanging a sound.
They were so close together as a group that I assumed the two parents were swapping, until I got home, uploaded my photos, and clearly saw KP729’s band (the zoom lens picked up the number that I couldn’t see with my poor old eyes)! 🙂
I’m wondering if there’s any indication that females are more sociable than males (not that I know which one was on the nest yesterday), or if KP729 was simply better known to this particular parent?