2023-10-11 20:00:00
On Wednesday I wrote regarding the gannet with a piece of fishing net around its beak. He would have survived bird flu, I wrote, and then met his end because of that fishing net. How do I know it’s coming to an end? I don’t know, but I suspect so. How do I know if he survived bird flu? Because it’s alive, following the pandemic caused thousands of dead boobies.
They washed ashore en masse in 2022. I also found them on Schiermonnikoog. Bass Rock, the islet near Edinburgh, was white for years, with the largest colony of gannets, with an estimated 150,000 birds, but is now predominantly gray once more.
Did that bird itself have bird flu? Yes. I see that in the photo. Gannets have blue-rimmed eyes with a light blue iris. If they have overcome an infection with bird flu, the iris is black. This discovery was made six months ago by the British Bird Protection Society.
The gannet in the photo also has black eyes. The bird and five of its kind accompanied the ship on which three old friends of mine and I sailed across the North Sea on Saturday. Suddenly this bird plopped down on the deck. No one on board saw or knew whether he/she had flown into the cables or the mast. They laughed and pointed and directed their calls.
Just like a swan
The bird was clearly scared. I retreated and asked people to keep the space to the railing clear so the bird might escape there. But he mightn’t. Gannets are so large that, like a swan, they need to run across the water to take off.
One of my three old friends suggested throwing a coat over the bird so that I might free it without the risk of having its eyes plucked out. Another had an even better idea and managed to pry open the gate in the railing. We directed the bird there. He stumbled from board, splashed into the sea, took a running start and rose majestically. Good luck, Jan!
Three times a week, biologist Koos Dijksterhuis writes regarding something that grows or blooms. Read his previous Nature Diaries here.
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