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Most birds molt and regrow their flight or wing feathers — one at a time along each wing — to stay in prime condition for flying. But for a Wandering Albatross, with a whopping 10-to-12-foot wingspan, that’s a big job! It takes the large albatrosses a full year to molt, and they have to put off breeding until the next year. It’s one or the other. But they make the birds incredibly efficient flyers and true masters of the wind.
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BirdNote®
Snowy Albatross Molt
Adapted from a script by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
[American Robin song]
To stay fit for the skies, most birds molt and regrow their flight feathers — one at a time along each wing. For an American Robin with a 17-inch wingspan, that’s 19 feathers per wing, molted and regrown over two months, just after the nesting season each year.
Now let’s scale up to the wing molt of a Snowy Albatross, one of the largest flying birds in the world with a whopping 10- to 12-foot wingspan.
[Snowy Albatross calling]
The Snowy Albatross, formerly known as the Wandering Albatross, is an incredibly efficient flyer thanks to those long, narrow wings. Sure, albatrosses may look awkward during take off. But once airborne, they can soar for hours — even days — as they forage for squid and fish on the ocean surface. A tendon locks in place in each wing, allowing them to ride the air currents with little effort or flapping. These birds are supreme gliders.
[NatureSFX # 02 Wind-moderate-soft]
With that gargantuan wingspan, it takes the large albatrosses a full year to molt, and they have to put off breeding until the next year. It’s one or the other.
Their long wings require a lot of upkeep, but they make the Snowy Albatross a true master of the wind.
This episode is also available en español. To learn more, start at our website: BirdNote.org. I’m Ariana Remmel.
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by TK
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote April 2021 / October 2025
Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# WAAL-01b-2025-10-01 WAAL-01b
Reference:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15536648/
http://slatermuseum.blogspot.com/2010/09/different-molt-strategies.html
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-basics-feather-molt/
Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Michael Stein
NarratorSights & Sounds
