black speckles on the mantle, and dark brown or black wings with white flecks on coverts. The tail is white except for the black tip as is the under-wing. Young birds soon lose the black on their tail and backs. White appears on the upperwing gradually, as speckles starting from the leading edge. All ages have a pink bill with black on the cutting edge on the upper mandible, and the legs are flesh-coloured. Young birds with all-dark upperwings can be hard to differentiate from the northern royal albatross. There are clear but subtle differences from the wandering albatross, with the southern royal having a clean black and white appearance, lacking the peach neck spot often found on the wandering albatross. Most wandering albatrosses have dark feathers in the tail and crown and the white in this species expands from the middle of the wing, in larger blotches. The bill color is also slightly paler, as well as the dark cutting edge along the middle. The average life span is 58 years. Range Most of the royal albatross population is found between 30° S and 45° S. The majority of the world's population of southern royal albatrosses nest on the rat-free subantarctic Campbell Island, around 8,200 to 8,600 pairs. There are smaller colonies on Adams Island and Auckland Island in the Auckland Islands, 20 pairs combined, and 69 pairs on Enderby Island and some sanfordi × epomophora hybrids at the northern royal albatross colony on the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand. They range along the southern oceans concentrating on the west and east coast of southern South America, and also in the waters surrounding New Zealand. Behavior They attract their mates using methods such as bill-snapping, clapping and gulping. Others ways also include sky-calling with outstretched wings, and neck and head stretched upwards. Feeding The southern royal albatross eats squid and fish, with smaller amounts of carrion, crustaceans, and salps. Its foraging activities normally take place within a 1250 km radius of the breeding site. Although they travel vast distances, royal albatrosses in general tend to forage in somewhat shallower waters and closer to continental shelves than wandering albatrosses. Reproduction They prefer to nest on tussock grassland, plateaus, or ridges, and will lay one egg biennially. This will normally take place in November or December. Both parents will incubate the egg, and rear the young. After they are born it