A gannet colony

In several places in New Zealand, gannets come to breed and spend the summer months in a cooler clime before they return to Australia for winter. Last Saturday, we went to visit the colony at Muriwai.

First we stopped at the black sand beach. Okay, it was not as black as some I’ve been on before, but these photos were taken at noon which shows the reflection of the sun. The beach doesn’t look very black at all. From higher up, with a photo I took later, it looks a little darker.

While we didn’t spend much time right at the beach, we did spend a couple of hours with the birds. The panoramic photo below is a first view from up above the colony as we approached.

Thousands and thousands of birds were on the rocks and cliffs and in the air. Notice how many were nesting on each of the three sites in the photo below.

Here is a closer shot of the number of birds. All those white spots are adult birds (the babies are harder to see from this distance).

It was fun to try and catch some birds in flight. Mostly they made small dots on the camera, but I did get a few in full flight. The wing span is about 2 meters.

The colony had adult birds (with mostly white wings except for the tips), juveniles (with mostly dark wings), and young birds with white fluff.

It was a wondrous site (a bit smelly when you got directly down wind…before I could stand to eat lunch I had to wash off my face, lips, and hands!)

All together a beautiful site and a wonderful place to be. Here is one last view of the Muriwai beach and gannet colony.

Okay, I couldn’t do just one more. Here is another one.