Australian gannets, Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, Australia

Excellent quality pictures.  They have lovely faces, they look like they're smiling.  Very graceful in flight too,

Thanks for sharing.

Sarah

PS Is it me or do people seem to be putting more pics in forum posts,  It is certainly quicker than adding them to galleries.

Thanks Sarah and Kezmo,

They certainly are striking birds and well spotted Kezmo - I hadn't noticed the ring.  The only difference I can see between these and our own gannets is that the Australian variety have a band of black along the edges of their wings which our don't have.  Ours only have black wing tips.  I daresay someone with greater knowledge than I will know the answer.  Suggestions anyone?

Re. Photos - It does seem quicker to post photos in threads.  I always intend to go back and post my favourites in my galleries but haven't bothered for a while for obvious reasons.  I shall have lots of catching up to do when the system gets moving a bit quicker.

SB

Hi,

Australian and Cape Gannets differ from our Northern Gannet  in the field mainly in having black secondaries :))

S

Hi SB, excellent pictures.

Thanks for sharing them :-}

Regards Buzzard

Thanks SB. They are excellent photographs of beautiful birds.  

Beautiful photos of the gannets!  They are one of my favourite seabirds :-)

Thank you Seymouraves, I thought you would know. 

Wow! Superb pics SB!! I love gannets too! Interesting to see what the 'southern' version looks like! Pretty similar apart from that bit of black!

Did you see any dolphins?

Just doing a bit of a catch-up here as I seem to have missed this post earlier. They are fabulous photos SB with some brilliant close-ups. Thanks for sharing those.