The Gannet is that bird on the homepage. Why? It has a simple and pleasing bird shape so it became the logo. It’s an impressive seabird with a wingspan of over 6ft and a body which acts as a homing missile for diving into the sea to catch fish. It reaches speeds of 60mph from a height of 30m during a near-vertical descent. It rarely misses, and at that velocity can continue on to depths of 20m underwater if it does. It shows a lot of spirit in its quest for survival.
Twenty-five miles from my home is Scotland’s largest mainland colony of them at Troup Head in Aberdeenshire. The population had been increasing rapidly by the time I first visited in 2013 by some 300% since the previous census in 2004. Great stats, but very sad and surreal to have over 3,000 of them wiped out by bird flu in 2022 not including over 90% of the young, which amounted to another 5,000+ birds (the colony was only established in 1988). First a human pandemic, then a tragedy for the wildlife. I had thought the rugged sea-cliffs far enough away from the harm of human influence, like a final frontier between us, them, and complete wilderness. But it seems that even the wellbeing of these hardy souls isn't guaranteed.
Over ten years I’ve visited them frequently and they’ve become my most-photographed subject by far. Seabird colonies smell bad and are a cacophony of all the ugly dramas and noises of life, but their colonisers have a remarkable lack of fear of humans. This allows you the spectator unprecedented access, a truly wild experience, yet that intimacy becomes strangely juxtaposed with the insurmountable nature of the landscape they inhabit - the sheer, towering, vertigo-inducing sea-cliffs. You feel like the Gannets know this and so feel safe and untouchable. More likely is that by spending most of their lives at sea, they have no experience of humans so haven’t developed a fear of us. Should you ever have to rescue one however, they will treat you like they would a fish. I once had to release one that was trapped behind a fence at Troup Head. The only option was to throw a jacket over it, and as I tossed it over the fence, the bird nearly flew out to sea wearing it!
The Gannet won't be to everyone’s taste. Guga (the Gaelic name for their large, fatty chicks) are still harvested annually for food in the north of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. But what I mean is their crudeness and the uncompromising landscape they inhabit that is raw and very real. They have adapted and become that themselves. They live in two worlds, but really only belong in one – at Troup Head, a mile of coastline at most, and then tens of thousands of square miles of ocean from the most northerly tip of the North Sea to the coasts of western Africa, many birds even crossing the equator during their southerly winter holidays. It’s a truly fascinating and amazing ability inbuilt into many seabirds, their navigation of the seemingly featureless seas. They can barely walk on land but have been known to fly singular round-trips of 1,000km just to gather food for their single young so they definitely embody that wandering ocean spirit. Embody maybe, but they only really give us a small glimpse of their actual lives – enigmas, as seabirds can only be. It's like peering into another world, a relentlessly unforgiving one, and it's humbling.
So there they sit, from late February through to early October, their beady-eyed, stern expression giving nothing away (birds would surely make excellent poker players!), shifting awkwardly on their stubby legs, completely betraying their airborne grace. Close-up, they look intimidating, like they might weigh a small ton. They’re somewhere between beauty and ugliness, both a work of art and a work of necessity. They are very gentle and loving with their partners and young but will entirely dismantle and steal their neighbour’s nest at a glance (if it isn’t occupied). Then they’ll have the audacity to fight that neighbour viciously when it retaliates!
The chicks themselves go through many phases, from bald reptilian newborns, through large white dumpling-like fluff-balls, to beautifully dark-plumaged, white-mottled juveniles as big as their parents, after which point they will fledge a mere 90 days later. It’s a great process to watch from close quarters, as much as it is a rich journey into an imagined world from that small window on the Aberdeenshire coast - a transoceanic trip of the mind, so close to home. I often wonder which of those fledglings I will see again the following year when they return with entirely different plumage. I once visited their cliffs on a New Year’s morning, bitterly cold and blowing an absolute gale, and there were no Gannets (as expected). Four seagulls were the whole morning’s bird count. The Gannets were so conspicuous by their absence it was profound.
You'll see a few Gannet photos in my Birds photo album as this website grows. There’s lots else there besides but one day the Gannets may get their own honorary album. I didn't visit Troup Head much during the human and avian pandemics which allowed for a pause and re-imagining of the place – photography can be prone to repetition and become stagnant with over-familiar subject matter so it seemed necessary to dig deeper and look for new angles, something which came about by just sitting and observing. My love for the place and its residents hasn't diminished. It's become a bit of a thing, a pilgrimage.
As for them, bird flu is still around in 2023 but the Gannets seem to have developed sufficient immunity to allow themselves to begin recovering. Many of the birds now have spooky, blacked-out eyes which studies have determined makes them survivors with immunity. The numbers which fell victim to the disease was truly large-scale for this species. We don’t really know where birds go to die, so to see the corpses of these once majestic beings littering the cliffs was unsettling to say the least.
In 2015 the UK had nearly 56% of the world population of these Northern Gannets (there are also African and Australian cousins). The largest colony by far covers the entire Bass Rock in Scotland's Firth of Forth, but you can also see them in great numbers on Shetland, Ailsa Craig in the Irish Sea off Scotland's west coast, Bempton Cliffs on England's East Yorkshire coast, and Grassholm, a small island off the south-west coast of Wales, as well as numerous other smaller sites. Thanks for reading about Gannets! Any thoughts on them, or any comments at all, feel free to include them below.
This first blog was dedicated to my friend Megan, who loves Gannets as much as I do. The next one might be about music.
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