The Gannets at Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand

Gannets are world wide. I know they live in South Africa and in Australia. Some of our gannets fly to Australia and back as they are experts at flying.

Gannets fly so fast that when they hit the water at about 110 miles an hour, they wear inner crash helmets in their heads and they have 2 or 3 lids to protect their eyes when they hit the water.

They quickly gather their fish in the water along with other hungry gannets.

#1 Adult Gannet at Cape Kidnappers.

The Gannets are very fast flyers and can fly up to 500 miles with no problems at all. They need to dive into the sea at very high speed and catch fish. They do with no problem at all..

This is home to these gannets. It is a historical site where the Maoris kidnapped the cabin boy of the early explorers of New Zealand. Now most of this land is a huge farm privately owned and a bus takes tourists to see the gannets. It's a 3 hour trip, well worth the journey.

At some stage the young Chicks take off. Imagine your first attempt of flight looking down a very steep cliff. Yet these young Gannets do it all the time. Im not surprise that they sound like a bundle of nerves.

The adults feed their chicks, usually by feeding them fish that they just caught. The chicks are dependant on their parents for a while but the parents also teach the chicks how to survive the sea and how to fly. They learn all the habits of their parents.

These are obviously friends and have known each other for a while. They understand each other's language. They know what they want which is fish and plan to get another meal on the go.

This Gannet chick would probably be able to fly but it's very much attached to it's parents. It watches over it's tired mother or father. The parent is probably in alert mode even though it's partly asleep.

The Gannet learns by experience. My Dad told us, "Any fool can fly! but the real art of flight is in landing the plane!" The Gannets have it in spades and they have more skills than planes because they are born to fly!