Northern Gannets - description, habitat, interesting facts

The content of the article

1 Distinctive features
2 Behavior features
3 Nutrition
4 Habitat and nesting
5 Video: Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus)

Northern Gannets delights with its appearance. I want to consider her elegant plumage, graceful landing of the head, elegant flight. But, despite its beauty, this bird is very predatory, and of the representatives of the family of booby - the largest.

These birds belong to sea birds, preferring cool areas. You can see them at the European coast, in the North Atlantic, in the northern parts of America and Africa, far from hot places.

Distinctive features

Northern Gannets - birds are quite heavy, their weight reaches 4 kg. The body is long - from 90 to 100 cm, and from 165 to 180 cm is the wingspan.

Nestlings appear completely without plumage, their skin is black. Young feathers are monophonic, but for now their color is dark brown. Beautiful white color appears due to numerous molts, after which white feathers become more and more.And only by 5 years the color gets a snow-white look. Only the tips of the wing and coating brushes of the wings remain dark brown.

Females and males almost do not differ from each other. They are all with the same white plumage. The neck and head can be not only purely white, but also in some representatives light yellow. The head and neck in the side parts shimmers with a light, muted yellow color, and it changes, becoming darker and lighter depending on the season. Northern Gannet feathers are unusual: their structure and special grease, which appears due to the fact that the bird self-lubricates them, makes the feathers water-repellent.

Eyes noticeably shifted forward. The color of the eyes is blue, and the eyes themselves are underlined by a dark blue ring, without feathers. The beak, as befits a predator, is long, resembles a cone with a slightly curved tip, it is dark blue in color. There are very sharp teeth on the front part of it - it was provided by nature itself, so that it was more convenient for a predator to capture prey.

Chin with a bridle are black. Legs are dark, with a yellowish-greenish tint.

pintail - description, habitat, interesting facts

Behavior features

These birds are simply amazing hunters. And in this not the last role is played by the favorable body structure of a streamlined shape. This is an advantage during diving. Audusha waits patiently when a school of fish flashes near the surface of the water. Observation she leads, floating in the air at about 10-30 meters in height. Once it appears, a bird rushes into the water rapidly, and it can dive to a depth of several meters, sometimes even 15 meters, but this rarely happens. During the flight, booby manages to skillfully maneuver, watching the movement of fish. But the dive can only be accomplished from the air, and hunting is not possible while sailing. Catching prey, the hunter immediately emerges. Many other species of birds are watching the beginning of the hunt nearby, and this is a signal to them that food has appeared. Then they, too, begin to hunt.

Boobies themselves have long understood that it is most convenient to feed near fishing vessels or not far from the livelihoods of people. But the person is also guided precisely by boobies, where it is most profitable to catch fish. This is an unusual collaboration.

Nutrition

Fish is the main food for booby, and in the first place it is herring or mackerel, as well as sardines, cod, smelt and other types of sea fish.All animals intended for food do not exceed 30 centimeters in length; sizes do not accept booby sizes.

Red-headed Pochard - description, habitat

Habitat and nesting

These birds nest in colonies along the coasts of the Canadian, Scottish, French currents of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic, and go to the eastern hemispheres for wintering. But young animals and adults choose different place for wintering.

In the first year, they travel a long distance, which is measured from 3,000 to 5,000 km to reach the eastern Atlantic, in subtropics. They also spend the next year in the subtropics and are in no hurry to go back. A few years later they set off to the north, settling down on the periphery in a colony, wintering off the North Sea or not far from the Portuguese coast. Older persons spend the winter off the Mediterranean coast.

Mature northern boobies find refuge in their native colony, and very rarely can fly away from it for hundreds of kilometers. Housing is mainly located on the cliffs, and up to 12,000 birds can settle in the same area. Then this area turns into snow-white.The nest begins in March and April, during this period, whole flocks fly to hard-to-reach rocky shores. Who flew first - and he got the best place.

For the nest, booby uses everything that is close by: algae, grass, soil, dirt. To seal the components, litter is used. The diameter of the nest is about 80 cm, and the height does not exceed 30 cm. In fact, it is a shapeless heap.

Everything in the family is strictly divided. The male is responsible for the materials. He also chooses a place, gets food, and then carefully protects it, otherwise neighbors will steal building components. The female builds a nest. Only at the age of 4–5 years does the first nest of birds appear, and in most cases it remains empty. If the nest has survived, the birds reuse it, but they improve it a little by adding building material.

Masonry occurs in the spring months, but in May - less. One egg appears, very rarely there can be several, but only one chick survives in this case. If the neighbors have stolen the egg, the female may postpone one more. Eggs are oval-shaped, their color is bluish-green.

In the nest, both parents are waiting for addition, hatching chicks in turns for about 44 days. When they change places, they necessarily perform ritual movements, which consist in the fact that they both pull their necks, gently rub their beaks, lifting them up.

Populations - American and European - do not intersect with each other.

blue-footed booby - description, habitat, interesting facts