GANNETS AT HOME

Hokitika Guardian, 2 May 1929, Page 8

GANNETS AT HOME

.ROOKERIES AT WHITE ISLAND. One of t!io sights to be seen during a visit to White Island is the gannet rookery, states Mr E. B. Peart, of Tauranga, who recently visited the island. There are if our rooicerics at the islands, and one never tires of watching the birds.' They are very tame, and no one ever molests them. The old birds have a formidable grey beak, yellowish head, blue eyes, and white feathers except on the tail and part of the wings. Their legs are black and have a green streak down the front and along the toes as if someone had used a paint-brush bn them. They have a very wide spread of wing, and are graceful flyers, gliders, and divers. They live solely on fish. The very young birds are covered with a delicate white down, through which their grey feathers begin to show. The old birds feed their young and know them from hundreds of others. The young bird pokes and pecks at the mother’s beak, and cries as if begging her to open it. 'lhe mother bird at length opens her throat and the youngster thrusts its head down and feeds. This process occurs three or four times. When fed. the voting bird throws its head right back, drops its wings, which quiver with de’iglit, and begins swaying its head backward and forward, from side to side, all the time making a noise like a motor-boat. One would think it was uttering a prayer of thanksgiving. I'his rocking motion goes on for from 15 to 20 minutes, sometimes much longer.

The old birds have a strange way of stretching up their necks, swinging their heads violently from side to side five or six times, flapping their wings, and uttering a rather melodious song. '|’his goes on continuously day and night. The noise of the young birds is like that of a lot of sewing machines, while the notes off the old birds resemble the howling of a host of puppy

logs. When the young gannets are fully grown and have learned to fly, they 'nave the. island with their parents to spend the winter in a warmer climate. \ny that are left behind usually die. At about the time the gannets leave ‘ housands of mutton birds arrive. I hoy make for the shore at dusk and crash nto telephone and electric wires and ;,o branches of trees. They chiefly burrow holes in the soft parts of the hillside, standing on one leg while vigorously scratching a hole with the other. Like the gannet, they lay only one egg at a sitting. The smell from the rookeries is very powerful, especially when the weather is warm and wet. If the cloud from the crater comes over them; the hydrochloric acid causes the ammonia off the rookery to become visible'like smoke or steam.

A fly like a small blowfly, hut more brilliant, is found in myriads at the rookeries. It is very hard to kill and is very troublesome.