Morus bassanus

Gannet - During the breeding season, Gannets mass in thousands along the cliffs of some of our rocky coastlines. A huge brilliant white bird with a metre and a half wingspan. Experts at catching fish by plummeting from great heights into a shoal. Ireland has five gannetries, Little Skellig off County Kerry is the largest with more than 20,000, Bull Rock , County Cork and Great Saltee, County Wexford are much smaller with less than 2,000 each, and the smallest are Clare Island, County Mayo and the newly-founded Ireland's Eye colony off County Dublin. Englands only remaining colony is at Bempton cliffs on the East Yorkshire Coast. There are over 11,000 breeding pairs at Bempton and they start to arrive back on the cliffs from early February onwards. This first photographs were taken on the Dublin to Liverpool ferry crossing and Bempton Cliffs East Yorkshire.

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John Foss Nature Photography Birds Wild Flowers Wildlife Butterflies Moths Greaghnafarna Ballinaglera Ireland Leitrim Derby England UK Algarve Portugal