Northern gannet

How it lives

Northern gannets nest in tightly packed colonies. A pair raises one chick a year. The single egg hatches after about 42 to 46 days, and the chick fledges at 84 to 97 days. Birds first breed at about 4 to 5 years. About 92% of adults survive each year. A bird that reaches breeding age lives about 17 years on average, and the oldest recorded in the UK reached 37 years 4 months. Young birds are grey-brown and take about five years to become mostly white.

Where it goes

After breeding, birds disperse up to about 800 to 1,600 km from their colonies. Adults head towards the Mediterranean and the African Atlantic coast. Young birds travel further, and there are records as far as Ecuador. Audubon says birds in North America move south offshore along the Atlantic coast, with young birds going further south than adults.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

Wikipedia gives a global population of 950,000 to 1,200,000 birds, and Audubon says about 720,000. Over two thirds of the world population breeds around the British Isles, and the Scottish Seabird Centre says Scotland holds 56%. The UK had about 295,000 nests in 2013 to 2014, and the species is Amber-listed in the UK. Bass Rock in Scotland has been the largest colony on Earth since 2014, at about 75,000 sites that year. Avian flu reached Bass Rock in 2022, when more than 5,000 dead birds were counted in a single June survey. Adult survival fell 42% below the previous 10-year average, and by 2023 about 55,000 sites remained. Wikipedia reports about 75% of known colonies were affected in 2022. In Newfoundland, the Cape St. Mary's colony grew from about 5,515 pairs in 1984 to about 14,600 pairs by 2018. IUCN assessed the species as Least Concern in 2018.