Mike in the Wild

I could never say I had ever seen an albatross until my last visit to Kauai a month ago.  On my previous trip four years ago I hadn't even looked for them; before that particular visit, I was always there out of their season.  But this time I stumbled upon the birds in a development crowded with homes, condos, and resorts.  It turned out you don't need to be on a ship at sea to witness an albatross in the wild. There are more than a dozen species of albatrosses.  The wandering albatross is the largest seabird in the world, with a wingspan up to eleven and a half feet.  But the one I encountered on Kauai, the Laysan, was much smaller; the species' wingspan is not even seven feet.  In fact another local visiting seabird, the magnificent frigatebird, is slightly larger.   I paused to look at two birds soaring overhead when I was touring Princeville in Kauai, a densely developed resort community atop a peninsula on the Hawaiian island's north shore....