Perhaps no other bird masters air and water
like a gannet!
With a long narrow six-foot wingspan, a gannet
can hover, glide, soar and dive,
but it’s beneath the surface of the water
that they really come into their own.
With the Atlantic offering up such bounty,
the constant fishing trips barely make a dent
in the vast resources of the sea.
The Vikings too only take what they need leaving
the colony thriving and ready for the next harvest.
In the 9th century, gannet numbers across
the northern world may have run into 10s of millions.
Individual colonies teaming with 100s of thousands
of birds.
