Overcrowding Among Gannets At Kidnappers

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 7, 13 October 1950, Page 2

Overcrowding Among Gannets At Kidnappers

Hastings, October 8. The annual round of mating and nesting is in full swing at the gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers and a serious problem of over-crowding is already becoming apparent. Each day the huge birds, some singly, some in pairs and others in small flocks, are returning to the barren, wind-swept cape from their northern migration. Nearly all the nesting-space on the main colony is occupied and many of the birds are seeking new homes in a subsidiary colony at Black Reef, several miles along the coast. The gannets’ mating ceremony is an interesting affair which never fails to attract the keen interest of ornithologists. The birds go through an elaborate ritual of bowing, wing flapping and weaving their long necks as they click their bills together. The preliminaries over, then begins the ceremony of bringing in the seaweed for the nest, another protracted affair which keeps both birds occupied for some days. Eggs are already being laid in many nests, and within a short time the huge, powder-puff chicks will fill the air with their rustyhinge squawkings. The birds make good use of seaweed from the previous season’s nests, but most of the nesting material is painstakingly gathered from the beach and sea far below and brought a piece at a time ?o the new nesting site. With the gannets sitting so close—they are just oeyoncl pecking distance—pirating of nesting material is rife and squabbles over stolen seaweed are frequent, vicious and noisy. The nesting gannets pay little heed to visiting humans, but to approach too close to a sitting bird is to invite a savage peck which can inflict a deep wound. Seen from the heights of the cape, the colony presents a bewildei'ing array of sound, colour and action. The air is filled with wheeling birds, thousands more sit in a great orderly array on the glaw ng white of the guano-covered slopes, and from far below comes the ceaseless murmur of the wide Pacific.

The large, cumbrous chicks scon grow into awkward squabs which make ceaseless demands for food and still more food. The parents make frequent long flights on fishing expeditions to meet the voracious appetites of their gawky young. The method of feeding is simple. The chick opens wide his long bill, the parent inserts her head and regurgitates the meal. How far do the gannets venture abroad on their daily flights from the cape? Ornithologists believe that they make long flights, and that some of the gannets seen from time to time on Wellington harbour are visitors from Cape Kidnappers, well over 100 miles distant.

As the squabs develop they begin day-long wing exercises, standing in their hundreds near the nesting sites and flapping their broad pinions by the hour in the ceaseless breezes which sweep the cape. These evolutions quickly develop the bird’s wings, the youngster makes a few tentative hops about the colony under the close scrutiny of the parents, and one day launches into glorious, graceful flight from the sheer cliffs, which fall away in a breath-taking plunge to the ocean below. The season quickly wheels around and by the autumn the birds are preparing to desert their breeding ground for northern climds. As they came in during the early spring, singly and in pairs, the great birds launch themselves into easy flight, make a lazy, wide circuit of their summer home, and then head north across the Pacific. Obeying a small, insistent voice of ancestral longing, the gannets have gone, leaving the cape to the storms of winter and an occasional truantgull.