Europe's only black-browed albatross - an exiled wanderer from the South Atlantic who can never return home - arrived at RSPB Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire coast last week to a thrilled response.
Albie, a mature male who has lived in the northern hemisphere since 2014, spent most of last summer at the nature reserve and visited in 2017 and 2020, but has never turned up in the spring before.
The celebrity seabird has real star power - last summer Bill Oddie, Lee Evans and actor Samuel West were among the fans who saw him.
He is likely to have been blown off course, and equatorial winds mean he is unlikely to ever return to his species' breeding grounds in the Falklands and South Georgia. He is destined to never find a mate, though socialises with gannet colonies.
Albie spends the winter across the North Sea in Germany and Scandinavia.
Yorkshire Post photographer James Hardisty captured the albatross in his majesty at the weekend.
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The exiled bird is unlikely to ever meet another albatross again, let alone find a mate
