Late Bloomers

If you’ve got older brothers or sisters then you’ll understand how it feels when they get to do everything first. They’re the first to ride a bike, first to go to ‘big school’ and first to stay out past 8pm.

Imagine how you’ve feel though if they were the first to fly…

Most of the gannets on Staple Newk have grown up and left the nest now, taking their wobbly leaps of faith into the sky. Some however, are still sitting impatiently on the rock complaining to their parents that it’s not fair. We’re aware of three young gannets on our reserve that are yet to fledge. The noisy nursery ground that they were born into however, has now turned into a quiet cliff face.

One of these young gannet chicks was a successful second attempt by some very determined parents. Their first egg was seen to have rolled (purposefully or accidentally – we’re not sure) out of the nest and disappeared after a few weeks. We thought they would just write this year off as a bad experience and come back next year to try again but they surprised us by sitting on another egg so late in the season.

Our pleasure was mixed with worry as the new chick hatched just as the first of the older chicks were getting ready to fledge. Around the reserve the same thing was happening in a couple of other locations. Fortunately all three of the chicks have managed to survive the terrible wind and rain that buffeted our coastline a few weeks ago, as well as the bullying of older birds in nearby nests. We have high hopes that they will make it to fledging age and hope that we’ll be lucky enough to be around to see it when it happens.