Wordless Wednesday

The Bonaventure Gannet Colony

 Last month, I tried to describe the Northern Gannet nesting colony on Bonaventure Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, off shore from Perce at the eastern tip of the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. The colony is the largest in the world. An estimated 62,000 pairs nest on the small island. Plus, there are many younger birds that have not yet paired. When writing the column, I could find no words adequate to the visual and sensual experience - the sight, sound, and smell of so many birds in one place.

Since my visit to the island, I have learned more about the Northern Gannet, the largest seabird in the North Atlantic. The impact on the bird from European contact makes the current nesting colony on Bonaventure even more remarkable. In 1534, the European explorer, Jacques Cartier, gave this account of the nesting islands off the Labrador coast: “These islands were as full of birds as any medow is of grasse, which there do makes their nests.”

The cold waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence were premier fishing grounds. Cod fishermen needed bait. Gangly and awkward on land, the gannets were easy prey. Hundreds could be killed in a short time for this purpose. They were also easily chased from their nests, and the single large egg gathered for food.

Even so, three centuries after Cartier’s account, John James Audubon in 1833 was so overwhelmed by the sight of so many birds nesting on the Labrador island known as Bird Rock that he could not even offer an estimated number. A naturalist visiting the island in 1860 found the numbers reduced, but still estimated the colony on the top at 100,000 and along the cliffs at 50,000.

Then the reports begin to tell a different story. Arthur Cleveland Bent in his “Life History” reports that in 1872, three years after the lighthouse was built, the colony on the summit was reduced to 5,000.  “In 1887 the total number of gannets nesting on Bird Rock was estimated at 10,000, and at the time of our visit in 1904 we estimated that their numbers had been reduced to less than 3,000 birds. Fortunately, they are now protected by the lighthouse keeper ...”

Bent continues: “Though not so well known as Bird Rock, the island of Bonaventure ... is fully as important as a breeding resort for gannets, for it contains by far the largest colony of these birds on the American coast.” In 1913 the colony contained about 7,000 gannets.

Since that time, protection to birds in general has been provided through national laws and international treaties. Protection to the critical nesting colonies has come from dedicated stewards, such as lighthouse keepers, and through concerted efforts by government authorities. Bonaventure Island is a Quebec national park, accessible to thousands of visitors each year, while carefully protecting these magnificent seabirds.

When breeding, the Northern Gannet practices a site fidelity, which means that the same pair returns to the same nest year after year. If one of the pair fails to return, the returning bird will find a new mate.

The nest is simple; to our eyes they all look the same, but the birds know which one they used the previous year. Each year they return to the nest, adding fresh eel grass, seaweeds, sticks, and even green grass. As the nest is remodeled with new materials it grows in size.

From one viewing angle at the gannet colony on Bonaventure Island, the nests on the top of the cliffs were in clearly distinguishable rows, and evenly spaced. They looked as though they had been laid out with the precision of a Roman town planner insisting on his neat grids, the houses crowded together with fastidious precision. That's about the way gannets do it. Their nest is about 18-24 inches in diameter and less than 3 feet from their neighbor. It makes for crowded urban conditions, aggravated by a decided lack of neighborliness among the birds. With so little distance between one another, each pair jealously protects its space. I saw numerous confrontations as one pair angrily thrust at their neighbors with open beaks, and aggressive complaints. Their neighbors returned insults in kind.

It is no wonder that confrontations are frequent. Within the tiny piece of real estate, a pair conducts their elaborate courtship dance. Though only one egg is laid, they copulate often. When a mate returns to the nest - gracelessly crash landing - they go through an elaborate greeting ritual. It all takes place on a very small piece of real estate. Bent provides a description: “The birds stand face to face, the wings slightly raised and opened, the tail elevated and spread. They bow towards each other, then raise their heads and wave their bills as though they were whetting these powerful instruments, or as if they were performing the polite preliminaries of a fencing bout. From time to time this process is interrupted as they bow to each other and appear to caress each other as each dips its pale-blue bill and cream-colored head first to one side and then to the other of its mate’s snowy breast. With unabated enthusiasm and ardor the various actions of this curious and loving dance are repeated again and again, and often continue for several minutes. After the dance the pair preen themselves and each other.”

Thousands of people visit the gannet colony on Bonaventure Island each year, but the birds  have no concern with the human voyeurs and go unmolested, except for the occasional researcher.  I watched a young man standing at the edge of the colony making notes on a clipboard. He was collecting some kind of data. What I could not understand was why he was pointing a large, multi-colored water pistol at the colony. When he  passed me on the path, I asked him. With the water pistol, he squirted a bird sitting on a nest. The bird stood. He could see if there was egg and make note. The bird sat again. For all of the sophisticated technology used in research today, sometimes a child’s toy and a clipboard will do the trick.

The gannet colony on Bonaventure Island was impressive and inspirational, a conservation and recovery success story. But, when they finish nesting, many of these gannets will migrate to the Gulf of Mexico for the winter months. Many young gannets will spend their first two or three years in those waters. For years to come, researchers will be studying the impact of the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on an island in the cold waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Baffled for a Description

I saw a bird recently that has baffled me for a description. More correctly, it was a species of bird in a nesting colony. I saw a nesting colony with an estimated 62,000 breeding pairs, and I cannot figure out how to adequately describe the experience.

The Island of Bonaventure lies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence just a short distance from Perce on the easternmost tip of the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. It is home to the largest nesting colony of Northern Gannets in the world. It is also the most accessible colony in the world. From my home, it is a two day drive, a short boat ride, and a 45 minute walk. Near the end of the pleasant walk, one hears the din followed closely by an intense fish smell and uric acid from excrement. Emerging from the shade of the spruce forest, there is a short expanse of grass, and then a broad plain leading to the precipitous cliff on the island’s eastern side. The broad plain was entirely covered in white, and stretched in both directions as far as could be seen on the rugged island edge.

In 1833, John James Audubon sailed in a small barque to see the Great Gannet Rock in Labrador. It was an arduous journey; his son and a few hardy seamen tried to land and examine the colony. They were unsuccessful. “Let me now, reader, assure you that unless you had seen the sight witnessed by my party and myself that day, you could not form a correct idea of the impression it has to this moment left on my mind.”

On the pleasant sunny day when we visited Bonaventure, the boat first toured around the island in a gentle sea. Seabirds swirled in the air overhead, fished in the waters, and crowded onto every ledge and into every crevice on the high cliffs. The broad ledges and gentle slope at cliff top drew the eye. They were covered in white, as though winter snow were refusing to give way to summer. Disbelief withdrew with reluctance. This was not a snow-capped island. It was a gannet capped island.

I need a break from trying to describe the experience of so much bird life crowded together.  Information is my refuge. The Northern Gannet measures 38 inches in length, has a six foot wingspan, and weighs about seven pounds. It is the largest seabird in the North Atlantic. On the wing, the gannet is majestic. It swirls over the ocean’s surface looking for schools of fish. Then its character alters from majestic to dramatic. From heights up to a hundred feet, it plunge dives into the water. Its body and wings become a sleek projectile as its spear-like beak pierces the surface.

During our three days in Perce, we watched gannets as they fished the waters between the island and the shore. As the tide came in, the gannet clouds came closer to us, always moving as the schools of fish moved. At times so many gannets were fishing the waters that it looked like the sky was raining birds. Plume after plume of white spray spumed from their dives.

When Audubon approached the Labrador colony, “I imagined that the atmosphere around was filled with flakes, but on my turning to the pilot, who smiled at my simplicity, I was assured that nothing was in sight but the Gannets and their island home.”

The Northern Gannet is a seabird; it spends most of its life on oceanic waters. Sometimes it fishes close to shore; more often it is over the waters of the continental shelf far off shore. The plunge dive takes it into the midst of the fish it is seeking. Some remarkable film footage shows that after its dive, the gannet swims in pursuit of its prey. Audubon reports that he saw the bird “remain under the surface of the water for at least one minute at a time. On one occasion of this kind, I shot one just as it emerged, and which held a fish firmly in its bill, and had two others half-way down its throat.”

The Northern Gannet is adapted to life on the oceans. It comes to land only to breed. Then it abandons its power and majesty. Unfortunately for this bird, its scientific names comes from this awkward time when it has to be on land. The gannet is the sole member of the genus, “Morus,” from the Greek for “stupid.”

The tag, “stupid,” is not fair to the gannet. But truth be told, on land the gannet looks like a doofus, a creature that is completely out of its element. Most of the gannets in the Bonaventure colony were crowded on their nests. A few were wandering around the edges. A gannet walking on land is not a comfortable sight. He looks a middle aged picnic goer who has gone to the beer keg a few times too often. He is under strict orders not to make a fool of himself, so he shuffles along cautiously, careful to walk a straight line. But it is all a ruse; he looks like he could fall over sideways at any moment.

The gannet has trouble walking on land, but this difficulty is nothing compared to the challenge it faces in landing on land, and taking off again. We watch our small songbirds alight on a twig with grace and precision; we take for granted the chickadee’s deft wing adjustments as it comes to a perch. By contrast, the gannet coming in for a landing is an adventure. The gannet does not alight; it crash lands. Wings and tail provide little braking power. The webbed feet hit first; then the rest of the bird impacts the ground as it plows into its mate and often its neighbors, to their complete annoyance.

For the gannets that are near the edge of the cliff, getting airborne is easy. They step off the edge. Away from the edge, it is more challenging. Between the nesting gannets and the rail fence there was a fifteen foot wide strip of grass. On the slightly uphill end of the grass, there were four gannets lined up, stretching their wings. Casually my favorite companion said, “They look like planes lined up for takeoff.” Precisely. The lead bird began running and flapping its wings and eventually got airborne, and after a few more wings beats finally looked like it knew what it was doing. A second bird came down the gannet runway with concentrated determination, and then the third and the fourth, each one eliciting from this observer the suspenseful query, “Will he actually get off the ground?” Ah me of little faith; each time the gannet answered in the affirmative.

When the runway had cleared, for the moment, I looked at the colony stretched across the island’s edge. Northern Gannets in the tens of thousands. How does one describe that? The sight of so many birds ... the noise ... the smell. Or must the sensuous impact simply be experienced?

Tens of Thousands

Yesterday I had one of my best days of birding. We visited Parc National de l'Ile Bonaventure in Perce, Quebec, on the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. The island hosts the largest nesting colony of Northern Gannet in North America, and probably the world, and also the most accessible - an estimated 62,000 nesting pairs! I will have at least one column about the experience in a couple of weeks. Briefly, and for the moment, this was a breath-taking encounter with nature and birds.

After weeks of trying to photograph warblers and small songbirds, it was also a photograph's dream, with gannets in the thousands close at hand. On my traveling notebook, I have only sampled the hundreds of photographs from our few hours on the island. I think these will survive the eventual gleaning.

We have a gray and rainy day which is why I have the time to do a post. From my hotel window, I can see the ocean. Gannets are fishing close to shore, and Black-legged Kittiwakes are floating on the water's surface. In spite of the dreary day, I hate to miss opportunities, so I think I will take the camera and step outside ...

Good birding!