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A young Australasian gannet, Muriwai, NZ |
Some writers have the
ability to wring a “YES!” from you, even
when you are not paying them due attention. Scottish poet and essayist Kathleen
Jamie is one such.
This week passage after
passage of her book “Sightlines” dragged me from distraction to attention, in
particular her description of gannet viewing in Shetland.
It was exciting, like a fun fair: the
closer we got to the cliff edge the more we could hear the racket, the more the
breeze brought us the smell.[1]
Suddenly I am a
scant-bearded 20 year old again, approaching the Cape Kidnappers’ gannet
colony on New Zealand’s North Island. After an awkward hitch-hike and a long
walk in, we are impatient to see the famous birds. But it is the smell that strikes
us first. Initially nose-twitching, it gradually moves through pungent to near
gagging strength.
The wildly whiffy birds add a
sensory layer to a place that is already full of drama. In Maori Cape
Kidnappers is Motaupo Maui (“Maui’s
fish-hook”), as it was the hook with which the demigod Maui pulled the North Island from the sea. Its European name
derives from an attempt by local Maori to kidnap a young Tahitian from Captain
Cook’s ship Endeavour in 1769.
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Muriwai gannet colony, New Zealand |
The Australasian gannet (Morus serrator) – or Takapu in Maori – is not a difficult
bird to admire. It is strikingly marked, prodigiously beaked, swift and strong
of flight and a peerless diver. Whatever characteristics elicit the word
handsome, each individual gannet seems to possess them.
But put 15 000 together, and
handsome doesn’t come into it. We stop well short of the cape’s end point. Smelling,
watching and listening to that many birds flying, greeting, fighting, feeding, sitting,
crapping and calling is sensory overload.
All was squalor and noise: the birds’
tenement was so plastered with guano that it shone, and the airborne birds cast
winged shadows on the whitewashed walls.[2]
It would be many years
before I would see Australasian gannets in large number again. Instead my next
significant gannet encounter is with northern gannets (Morus bassanus), the same Kathleen Jamie describes.
We are on Great Blasket
Island, off the coast of Kerry in western Ireland enjoying a rare sunny
summer’s day. It is a place that reeks of history, both ancient and recent, and
that is why we are here. So it comes as a surprise when we find ourselves birdwatching for nearly half an hour.
A dozen or more northern
gannets are plunging again and again into the deep emerald waters of Blasket
Sound. One of our companions explains that gannets have reinforced
skulls, enabling them to drop into the ocean at speeds that would fracture the
skulls of other species. That same speed enables gannets to “fly” underwater to
great depths to catch fish and squid.
The gannets we’re watching
are too far off for us to hear them, but I fancy that I’m watching a wildly syncopated
Irish dance, as each bird dives, rises, shakes and takes off again.
It is again New Zealand that
delivers our most recent gannet experience. Muriwai, west of Auckland, is a
smaller, more accessible version of Cape Kidnappers, hosting a couple of
thousand Australasian gannets.
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Gannets (above) and Humans (below), both fishing at Muriwai, NZ |
I cannot tire of watching
these birds taking off, flying, landing and socialising. Considering they weigh
around two kilograms each and have wing spans of nearly two metres, both
their mobility and their sociability are admirable. Once the young birds are
large enough and fat enough, they will fly over the Tasman to feed in
Australian waters.
It’s a reminder that birds
don’t have borders. And that some of the threats they face, including their
food sources being swallowed up by human overfishing, need both local and
international attention.
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