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Northern Gannet

Northern Gannet

Morus bassanus

Identify the Northern Gannet by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Northern Gannet is the largest seabird of the North Atlantic, a sleek white bird with long, narrow black-tipped wings, a dagger-like bill and a buff wash on the head in the breeding season. It breeds in huge colonies on sea cliffs and islands in western Europe and north-eastern North America. Young birds are dark and take up to five years to become white. It is a spectacular high-speed plunge-diver.

Did you know?

  • Air sacs under the skin cushion the impact of its plunge dives.
  • The genus name Morus comes from the Greek for “foolish”, after how tame gannets seemed on their colonies.

Voice

Sound

About the species

Identification

A large seabird with long, narrow wings and a long, wedge-shaped tail. Adults are white with black wingtips; the head is yellowish in summer. The bill is pale blue-grey, the eye pale, with black bare skin around the eye and bill. Young birds are dark brown with white speckling and whiten gradually over several years. It differs from gulls in its pointed bill, tail and wings.

Family

Sulidae

Size

Very large (swan)

Colours

white, black, yellow

About the habitat

Open sea and coastal waters of the North Atlantic; breeds on steep sea cliffs and offshore islands.

Diet

Mainly shoaling fish such as sand eels, herring and mackerel, as well as squid, caught in plunge dives or by chasing prey underwater.

Behaviour

Dives from 10–40 m, folding its wings to spear into the water at up to about 100 km/h, then swims after prey with wings and feet; air sacs under the skin cushion the impact. It often feeds in groups and follows fishing boats. It breeds in dense colonies on sea cliffs and stacks; both parents incubate the single egg under their webbed feet. Outside the breeding season it ranges widely over the ocean.

Sources

Photo: Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morus bassanus adu.jpg

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC1143445, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/1143445

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_gannet

See also