Fur seals also feed out in the open ocean, but they are able to dive to a hundred meters or more.
The patchiness of the krill requires those that live on it to spend a great deal of time searching.
And an albatross will fly hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles, on a single foraging trip.
Out here, birds can’t afford to be fussy and must take whatever food they can find. Almost all of them scavenge to some extent. These birds have found the remains of a small whale. They are the crumbs left behind after a catch by killer whales. Giant petrels, the vultures of the Antarctic, soon dominate the feast.
The biggest of all the scavengers is the wandering albatross. With a wingspan of over three meters, this bird can range over greater distances than any other. It needs the updraft created by waves in order to fly, and only these stormy southern waters provide that in such abundance . Throughout the winter, wandering albatross remain in the south, for although the continent is trapped in ice, there are a few outer islands that always remain beyond its grasp, and these provide the albatross with their nesting sites.
Three thousand pairs of wandering albatross nest on one of them, here in South Georgia.
New Words & Phrases
fussy:过分注意细节的;挑剔的
scavenge:(动物)以废物或腐肉为食
crumb :A small fragment, scrap, or portion:
小碎块,裂片,小部分
vulture:秃鹰
wandering albatross:漂泊信天翁
updraft:An upward current of air.
上升气流