Watching gannet chicks grow
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| Adult Gannet with Fluffy Chick |
Like all baby birds, gannet chicks are delightful to photograph and to watch as they grow. Birdwatchers at RSPB Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire can get exceptionally close to them and it is especially interesting to be able to see the changes in the chicks as they develop.
At first they appear as little more than white bundles of fluff glimpsed under an adult. When sitting beside an adult they can look deceptively large, nearly as big as the parent in fact. Most of their bulk though is down, just fluff. The chicks darken as they get older and as their feathers develop with the head gradually changing from white to grey to dark grey. By the time the birds are ready to fly they appear almost completely black with white speckling.
In this state they will fly with the adults to the Mediterranean and they will stay there for about 3 years. The breeding adults will return to the same spot to nest next year. When they are around 3 years old they will return with the adults although they are not ready to breed. Gannets arn't fully mature until they are about 10. These juveniles can be easily identified flying around the ganneries. They have much more black on their wings, it is only when they are completely sexually mature that thegannets have a pure white appearance with black only on the edges of the wings.
This photo journal is a follow-on article from my previous Gannets At Bemptonpage, and it shows the different stages the gannet chicks go through as they grow. In the colonies the eggs hatch at different times so there is always a colourful range of chicks in view.
If you enjoy your visit, don't forget to recommend it to your friends.
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| Adult gannet with young chick, you can just see the chick tucked into the cliff. |
Development Stages of Growth for Gannet Chicks
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| Adult Gannet with very young chick - newly hatched they are completely white |
Stage one - all white
Once hatched, the gannet chick appears as a white downy bundle under one of the adult birds. For a while they look almost bigger than the adults with all that downy fluff.
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| Northern Gannet Chick |
Stage Two -
As they get older they start to grow dark feathers to replace the white down.
Stage Three -
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| Adult Northern Gannet with Gannet Chick |
The head stay white and downy longest giving the chick a bit of a lamb-like appearance.
The feathers come in much darker and the head turns grey then becomes darker just before the chick is due to fledge.
Stage Four
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| 11 week old Gannet Chick with Adult Gannet |
The chicks become darker
This one is 11 weeks old.
Fledging
When they are ready to fledge - they are actually too heavy to fly so they throw themselves off the cliff into the sea where they will remain until they loose enough weight and have strong enough wings to take off - the parents don't fed them - at this point the adults have moved off further to sea.
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| juvenile gannet in flight |
Juvenile gannets will return to the nesting sites where they were born when are about 3 years old. They have more black on their wings than fully mature gannets. Some describe the black and white patterning on the wings as piano-key marking. This juvenile has the beginnings of the peachy nape and head but is not fully sexually mature.
You see a lot of them flying at Bempton Cliffs
How do gannet chicks feed?
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| Gannet Chick begging for food |
Gannet chicks are fed by regurgitation by the adults. The chick will beg for food, the adult stretches her neck up and refurgitates food she has ingested earlier, then fed directly into the chick's mouth. Sometimes it looks as if she is swallowing the whole of the chick's beak.
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| gannet chick being fed by adult |
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| gannet chick being fed by adult |
Information about gannets
- The gannet is the largest of the European seabirds.
- It belongs to the Sulidae family of the Pelecaniformer order.
- It's species designation is Morus brassna and commonly called Gannet.
- An adult gannet is about 35-38 inches long and has a wingspan of over 5 feet.
- It will weight roughly 6-7 lbs.
- Adults are white with a peachy blush on head and nape of neck and black on wing edges.
- Found in coastal regions of Europe including Iceland and northern Mediterranean.
- They breed from March to October in large colonies on cliff edges.
- They feed on fish they catch by diving into the sea from great heights.
- They lay only one egg that hatches in 43-45 days.
- Both adults incubate the egg.
- The chick fledges after about 12 weeks.
PHOTO GALLERY GANNET CHICKS AT RSPB BEMPTON CLIFFS
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| Adult Gannet with Gannet Chick on nest |
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| Adult Gannet with Gannet Chick on nest |
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| Adult Gannet with Gannet Chick on nest |
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| Adult Gannet with Gannet Chick on cliff nest |
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