Melinda Conners, on Tern Island, Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge -- Masked and red-footed boobies on Tern Island have just started laying their eggs. They start breeding slightly later than black-footed and Laysan albatross.

Melinda Conners, on Tern Island, Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge - The albatross chicks are growing like weeds!  The adults are leaving the chicks unattended for days on end while they endlessly forage throughout the North Pacific Ocean to provide their rapidly growing chick with high-calorie chick-meals. 

Melinda Conners, on Tern Island, Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge -- This unique bird is the product of a union between a Laysan albatross and a black-footed albatross. Both of these species breed on Tern Island.

Scott Shaffer, UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA -- There's excitment in the air, hormones are raging, lots of singing and dancing, and well..... albatrosses are doing what comes naturally at this time of year. They're breeding.

Michelle Kappes, at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab. Do albatrosses change where they look for food from year to year? As albatrosses are gaining some fantastic attention in a December 2007 National Geographic Magazine article written by Carl Safina and photographed by Frans Lanting, we’re trying to learn more about these majestic birds through our research projects.