Short-tailed Albatross

How to identify

Field marks

1. Bill large and pink, with blue bill tip in older birds
2. Adult crown and nape washed yellow
3. Adult mostly white, with black flight feathers
4. Adult has a black band at tail tip

Male, female and young

Juveniles are brown overall and gradually become whiter as they grow.

Similar species

Laysan Albatross

This species is larger, with a pink bill that becomes bluish at the tip in older birds.

Black-footed Albatross

This species is larger, with a pink bill that becomes bluish at the tip in older birds.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: December · Most records: U.S. Outlying Islands, United States, China

Short-tailed Albatross has been recorded at 13 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 4 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

U.S. Outlying IslandsUnited StatesChinaJapan

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The short-tailed albatross or Steller's albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) is a large rare seabird from the North Pacific. Although related to the other North Pacific albatrosses, it also exhibits behavioural and morphological links to the albatrosses of the Southern Ocean. It was described by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas from skins collected by Georg Wilhelm Steller (after whom its other common name is derived).

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions