Thalassarche bulleri
Silhouette: Johnny · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
Buller's albatross (Thalassarche bulleri) or Buller's mollymawk is a small mollymawk in the albatross family. It breeds on islands around New Zealand, and feeds in the seas off Australia and the South Pacific. Mollymawks are a type of albatross that belong to the family Diomedeidae of the order Procellariiformes, along with shearwaters, fulmars, storm petrels, and diving petrels. They share certain identifying features. First, they have nasal passages called naricorns that attach to the upper bill, although the nostrils on the albatross are on the sides of the bill. The bills of Procellariiformes are also unique in that they are split into seven to nine horny plates. Finally, they produce a stomach oil made up of wax esters and triglycerides that is stored in the proventriculus. This is used against predators as well as an energy rich food source for chicks and for the adults during their long flights. They also have a salt gland that is situated above the nasal passage and helps desalinate their bodies, due to the large amount of ocean water that they imbibe. It excretes a highly saline solution from their nose.
In 1998, C.J.R. Robertson and G. B. Nunn split this species... Wikipedia →
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New Zealand · 2016
© David Boyle · XC926277 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rakiura National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 2 | Fiordland National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sydney | 🇦🇺 Australia |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Buller's Mollymawk sighting in Fiordland National Park on a given day, based on 146 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 69th most-seen of the 94 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February, April–May and July–August
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Buller's Mollymawk in Fiordland National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March, June and September–January, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Buller's Mollymawk sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 2
Of the 2 parks where we can rate Buller's Mollymawk sightings, Fiordland National Park ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Rakiura National Park (New Zealand, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Buller's Mollymawk is recorded against all the birds logged in Fiordland National Park (146 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
