Australasian Gannet

Cape Kidnappers Gannets – cont.

It is a very busy time of year so I have been very slow at going through the images from our last visit to the Cape Kidnappers Gannets.  My focus on the day was mainly on behaviour shots, as I didn’t want to have more of the same as I had taken in the past.

Each time I visit the gannets I manage to find one chick that stands out for one reason or another.  This trip was no different in that I found one very dirty chick.  Most of the parent birds are very fastidious about preening both themselves and their chicks but not in this case. As you can see the chick in the image below is nothing like the one above.

Another chick was very interested in chewing the parent bird’s foot.  It played with the ring band and foot for quite a while and I admit to being somewhat distracted by the humourous game the chick was playing.  I have many images of it – way too many!

There were the usual squabbles with the nest mounds being very close to their neighbours and I do enjoy capturing the interaction between the different nests. Lastly of course there are the greetings to the returning parent bird when it comes back to the nest.  Trying to get a different take on such a well photographed moment is almost impossible.

I would like to wish all my readers a very safe and happy holiday period and hope you are all taking lots of photos while the summer sun is here.

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