Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos
Vagrant. South Atlantic.
Immature Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross at Diawa Manton fishing lakes, Scunthorpe July 2nd-3rd 2007 (Paul Condon).
On the evening of July 2nd 2007, fishermen on the New Lake at Diawa Manton fishing lakes, south of Scunthorpe and close to Messingham sand quarry, noticed a flock of gulls mobbing a large seabird. This was just before dusk, but fishermen who stayed on to fish through the night noticed it was still present the next morning. Paul Condon, from Sheffield, had the incredible sight of this ocean-going seabird floating around only metres away from his bankside seat! The bird stayed until midday on 3rd July when it flew off south and was not seen again. Its identification was confirmed as an immature Yellow-nosed Albatross when photographs were sent to the RSPB and county recorder. The full story of this astonishing event appeared in full in both the Lincolnshire Rare & Scarce Bird Report 2003-2007 (Condon undated) and in British Birds.
This was the second part of the story, however, as it had first been discovered in a garden at Brean, Somerset, on June 30th 2007, where it was taken into care. After an overnight stay it was released from the cliff top at Brean Down the following day, next stop Manton fishing lake on July 2nd. This was presumably the same bird seen later flying past coastal Sweden near Malmö on July 8th.
Later review of the record in the light of current understanding of the identification, distribution and taxonomy of the Yellow-nosed Albatrosses showed that it was an immature Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos, and the species has been added to category A of the British List (Rowlands et al. 2010). This species, which was split from Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross T. carteri by the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) taxonomic committee in 2009 (Gill & Donsker 2017), breeds in the South Atlantic and has occurred in the North Atlantic on several occasions. Rowlands et al (2010) extensively review the identification criteria, mainly the bill colouring, needed to separate these two closely related species.
| Site | First date | Last date | Count | Notes |
| New Lake, Diawa Manton fishing lake, Scunthorpe | 02/07/2007 | 03/07/2007 | 1 | Immature |
References
Condon, P. (undated) Yellow-nosed Albatross in Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire Rare & Scarce Bird Report 2003-2007, p.162.
Gill, F. and Donsker, D (eds) (2017) IOC World Bird List (v 7.3). Accessed at www.worldbirdnames.org/ioc-lists/master-list-2/
Rowlands, A., Kidner, P. and Condon, P. (2010). From the Rarities Committee’s files: Yellow-nosed Albatross: new to Britain. British Birds 103: 376-384.
(Account prepared December 2017; updated with reference to the new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), September 2022)