Africa Wild

it's where I saw lot and lot Gannets... few days ago

a very nice place

Bird Island (about 200 km north of Cape Town) is one of the best place to observe Cape Gannets as it is easily accessible from the mainland via a breakwater. But the place is not a year-round colony for these birds as I thought, so I was a bit disappointed when I saw only 3 Gannets in the distance earlier this month.

All the adults leave the island in May, when the young can fly and begin to be autonomous and they come back only in August for the beginning of the next mating season. Between May and August, the island is only used as a resting place from time to time and one has to be lucky to see the birds.

Here are the pictures I took of the Gannets, the first one from the hide, which is very near the nesting ground ; the other ones from the northern breakwater (with Cape Cormorant).

The Island is also home of a Cape Fur Seal colony (which feed on young Gannets when they leave the nest and go fishing for the first time).

When there is no Gannet, there are always other birds for the birders, especially Cormorants :

Cape Cormorant (Phalacrocorax capensis)


Crowned Cormorant (Microcarbo coronatus)


Bird Island at sunset with Cormorant silhouettes

Swift Tern (Thalasseus bergii) in non breeding plumage


Common Tern (Sterna hirundo), also in non breeding plumage


Hartlaub Gulls (Chroicocephalus hartlaubiii) and Swit Terns (Thalasseus bergii) with one Grey-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus)

Great sea wildlife that one does not see so often.

At least there were a couple of gannets, but if you expect the island covered with them, it is not much Luckily there were other things

I have never understood why seals, sea-lions etc. have to sit on top of each other, but it makes for a great photo

Still some some lovely sightings!

Thanks, I will go back during the mating season when the male Gannetts perform a nice courtship ritual.

like these ones





2.10.2014