Michelle Kappes, at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab. As part of my PhD project at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I’m looking to see how efficient Hawaiian albatross parents are at feeding their chicks. We estimate how much energy Laysan and black-footed albatross adults use up during a trip to sea to find food. And then we measure how much food energy they deliver to their chicks when they return from sea. That’s where the bucket comes in. (Here's the photo that Frans Lanting took of me holding the chick in a basket.

Michelle Kappes, at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab. Do albatrosses change where they look for food from year to year? As albatrosses are gaining some fantastic attention in a December 2007 National Geographic Magazine article written by Carl Safina and photographed by Frans Lanting, we’re trying to learn more about these majestic birds through our research projects.