(n.) A web-footed bird, of the genus Diomedea, of which there are several species. They are the largest of sea birds, capable of long-continued flight, and are often seen at great distances from the land. They are found chiefly in the southern hemisphere.
Example Sentences:
(1) But the Ukip albatross grows bigger by the year and may destroy his career.
(2) On her right shoulder is an albatross: "She wanted to come back as one when she died."
(3) These patients continue to haunt the surgeon, and the syndrome has been named the "albatross" syndrome.
(4) There is now provisional BBC Trust approval for Project Canvas , the TV-on-demand joint venture that includes ITV, the BBC and BT, but Norman may be left with the task of working out what to do with ITV's digital albatross Friends Reunited, if the Competition Commission blocks its proposed £25m sale .
(5) Now that shopping habits have changed with the arrival of online grocers and the popularity of buying little and often from small local shops, Tesco’s collection of large stores seems more like an albatross around its neck.
(6) So far, the president has been more fatuous than fascistic, though he belatedly realized what an albatross the bill had become.
(7) While newer procedures in ulcer surgery may alter the incidence of standard postgastrectomy complications it will not alter the incidence of the albatross syndrome, which is more directly related to the selection of the patient rather than the selection of the surgeon or surgical procedure.
(8) "Does social conservatism continue to be a albatross around the neck of the party?"
(9) Liberal Democrat leader Clegg, who has been variously branded a "jelly", "condom", "lapdog" and "yellow albatross" by Johnson, suggested the mayor should be clearer about his true intentions.
(10) 'House Of Cards', which recalled Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross'.
(11) So next time you buy bottled water, remember the baby albatross.
(12) Lead poisoning was diagnosed in 10 of the droop-winged albatrosses and was one of the causes of morbidity.
(13) But albatrosses have adapted to cope with salty food and water.
(14) Human activity (lead poisoning and vehicular trauma) caused mortality at Midway Atoll and represented additive mortality for pre-fledgling albatrosses.
(15) Although she came to see The Golden Notebook as her "albatross", she had to concede that the novel, written during a period of great personal and social upheaval, had a life and energy of its own.
(16) There’s no question it will be an albatross should he win the nomination.
(17) His presence either indicates a certain softening of attitude towards the prize on the part of Blur's frontman, or else it's going to be short-lived: the last time he turned up on the Mercury shortlist, for Gorillaz's eponymous 2001 debut album, Albarn demanded the nomination be withdrawn, claiming that winning the award would be "like carrying a dead albatross around your neck for eternity".
(18) Over 100 species of sea birds are known to have ingested plastics, and according to a study published last month around 95% of fulmar, a seabird related to albatrosses, have been found to have potentially hazardous plastics in their stomachs.
(19) Hosts of brightly plumed birds – "flamingos and frigate-birds, falcons and deep-water albatross" – have flocked into the town, and when the narrator leans against a pillar box, trying to straighten his flying suit, an eagle "guarding these never-to-be-collected letters snaps at my hands, as if she has forgotten who I am and is curious to inspect this solitary pilot who has casually stepped off the wind into these deserted streets".
(20) Epizootic mortality occurred in Laysan albatross (Diomedea immutabilis) fledgings at Midway Atoll in 1983.
Cormorant
Definition:
(n.) Any species of Phalacrocorax, a genus of sea birds having a sac under the beak; the shag. Cormorants devour fish voraciously, and have become the emblem of gluttony. They are generally black, and hence are called sea ravens, and coalgeese.
(n.) A voracious eater; a glutton, or gluttonous servant.
Example Sentences:
(1) • Sustainable tourism company Sumak Travel offers tailor-made journeys to Veracruz, and other parts of Mexico Los Islotes , Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico Steve Backshall , naturalist and TV presenter Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo Just two hours from La Paz in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, Los Islotes is a rocky California sea lion colony, peppered with resting blue-footed boobies, cormorants and pelicans.
(2) Bird life is abundant and includes oystercatchers, ibis, egrets and cormorants.
(3) And the Olympic torch completed its remarkable journey, the penultimate stage undertaken from Hampton Court to Tower Bridge on the prow of the gilded Gloriana, at the head of a flotilla of rowboats that drew curious glances from the cormorants, herons and great crested grebes in their haunts by Richmond Bridge.
(4) It's home to pelicans, cormorants, herons and dozens of other bird species, along with the carp, trout and eel that end up on the area's dinner plates.
(5) Pesticide sources could not be determined, partly because migratory species such as ducks, mutton birds, cormorants, and eels may have ingested pesticides outside of Tasmania.
(6) Visitors understandably make a beeline for the big-name big game parks like Yala, but sharing sunrise over the lagoon with Indian pond herons, black and yellow bitterns, a dazzling purple swamp hen, black cormorants, a peacock surveying the scene from a rocky perch and even a small crocodile, had its own magic.
(7) Detailed evidence has been collected from the following three groups of studies on herring gulls in the lower Great Lakes during the early 1970s; Forster's terns in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1983; and double-crested cormorants and Caspian terns in various locations in the upper Great Lakes from 1986 onwards.
(8) were found in double-crested cormorants and common loons in Florida.
(9) Shared epitopes to P450 IA1 and IA2 were seen on a single protein expressed in liver microsomes from the cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo).
(10) His hair is cormorant-black, he flashes ebony eyes and his smile reveals a row of pearly white teeth which look ready to plunge into a meal of little girl burgers.
(11) The erythrocytes of the adult Cormorant contain two hemoglobin components in a ratio of 83% Hb A to 17% Hb D. The primary structures of the alpha A-, alpha D- and beta-chains are presented.
(12) It’s not a desert, though: on a walk you might spot cormorants or great crested grebes.
(13) The mean erythrocyte count of the cormorant is similar to that of penguins but lower than that of flying, non-diving sea-birds.
(14) One morning I opened the curtains to see a cormorant swimming westwards, fish-like and gleaming, slowly followed by a gaggle of foraging Canada geese.
(15) DDE, PCBs, and mercury residues were highest in cormorant and petrel, intermediated in alcids, and lowest in eider and tern.
(16) Red cell enzymes: glucose phosphate isomerase, phosphofructokinase, aldolase and enolase are higher in the cormorant than in the little penguin; glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase, monophosphoglyceromutase, pyruvate kinase, lactate dehydrogenase and glutathione reductase are lower.
(17) Several species of colonial fish-eating birds nesting in the Great Lakes basin, including herring gulls, common terns and double-crested cormorants, have exhibited chronic impairment of reproduction.
(18) PCBs (quantitated as Aroclor 1260) were found mostly in cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis) and cormorants at the three locations.
(19) This tick infests nesting colonies of the common tern, roseate tern, sandwich tern, herring gull (northern and Mediterranean races), common cormorant, shag, razorbill, common murre, black-legged kittiwake, and probably other marine birds nesting nearby.
(20) Candida albicans was isolated from gulls and Canada geese in Connecticut and from gulls and cormorants in Florida.