Gannets are Britain’s largest seabird and Bempton Cliffs is the only place in England where they breed. If there are any avid Bempton Cliffs followers, you will no doubt know about Gannet pair number 33; they are always among the first Gannet pair out of all the 13,400 Gannet pairs here to come back to the cliffs each summer. Gannets do not breed until they are at least 5 years old.
The famous pair arrived back to the cliffs in February, around Valentine’s Day...how romantic. They laid their egg in early April, which was Eggcellent news. Gannets do not have a brood patch (a bare patch on a bird's underbelly, developed to incubate eggs and brood chicks, where a network of blood vessels increases the body temperature of that area) so they incubate their eggs under their huge feet; this is a very delicate procedure, given that they have a 6.6 ft wing span and weigh 3kg. Gannets have a 6 week incubation period meaning the first Gannet chick (Guga) would hatch mid May. We were all counting down on our calendars and the egg hatched bang on time. A few days before the egg hatches, the chick inside the egg will make a “peeping” noise; at this signal the adult Gannet will move the egg above its feet. This allowed us to get our first glimpse of the chick. From now on the gannet chick will stay above the feet of the adult.
Image: Mike Babcock
Gannet chicks start off naked and grey; they then get progressively fluffier until they look like a sheep on the cliff (as you can see with pair 33’s chick below). This downy white fluff tends to blow up onto the paths above the cliff, giving the appearance of a snow flurry on the paths.
Image: Kizzy Arnold
At about 5 weeks, the first sets of feathers start to grow through the down. These feathers are black and there is a good reason for this: Gannets are very territorial and will fight to the death over nest space, so the chick is black so as to not look like an adult gannet.
Gannets are 13 weeks old when they leave the nest in their black plumage. By this stage they have been fed by both parents so much, that they are literally too fat to fly. After gliding off the cliff, the fledglings will begin to paddle away. After a week to 10 days they will have lost enough weight to be able to get off the water and fly. The young Gannets will make their way to winter off the west coast of Africa.
Sophia Jackson
Visitor Experience Assistant, Bempton Cliffs Reserve