Boobies and Gannets

Northern Gannet

Morus bassanus
“What’s that big, dark brown bird swimming out there,” Nancy Boudrie wondered aloud on 6 October 1980 as she scanned the lake off Parking Lot 4 at Hamlin Beach SP. Even as she spoke, the bird took wing, and so distinctive was its shape that Boudrie immediately answered her own question: “It’s a gannet, pointed on both ends, just as the book says,” John Brown related. (BA, 9 Oct 1980) This rarity here is eagerly anticipated by lakewatchers, and the 1980 bird put on quite a show, reported Carolyn Cass, who was also there that day. “As we watched, the bird flew up. It was immediately chased by all the gulls in the area. . . . At the end of its circle, it folded its wings back and dove like a pelican. It reappeared immediately, stretched out its wings, gave them a flap, and settled down.” During the next half hour, the gannet made several more circular flights. “Most of its flight was in flaps with an occasional glide,” Cass noted. “The wedge-shaped tail could be seen as it dove. Common loons, ring-billed gulls and greater black-backed gulls were seen next to it. This bird was much larger than any of these. Its wingspan seemed nearly twice that of the ring-billed gulls. Each flight of the bird took it farther west.” (LG, November 1980) “As long as it was swimming, the gulls seemed to ignore it,” Brown noted. It stayed the rest of the day and reappeared the next afternoon, allowing many birders to observe it. But not without some effort. Bob Dobson later recalled that when he and his brother Frank went with Jane and Bob Kesselring to see the bird, all they could see was “a dark object bobbing on the waves several hundred feet out. We couldn’t identify it. . . its head was tucked in. The darn thing was probably asleep.” With darkness closing in the group was getting desperate. Finally, Bob Kesselring had an idea. He sprinted down the long sandy slope to the shoreline where he started “jumping around, waving his arms and whistling. “It worked!” Dobson noted. The gannet lifted its head, raised up out of the water and flapped its wings several times. Dobson and Jane Kesselring got a great look at it; alas, it was back “asleep” by the time Bob Kesselring returned to the scope. Finally, however, it roused itself again so every body could get the look they needed. (GOS, February 1983)
Background
This is the “heavyweight among the plunge-divers of the world,” writes Thomas Mowbray in his profile of this species for The Birds of North America. It breeds along the continental shelf waters of the North Atlantic, in 32 colonies from the coast of Brittany in France to Norway, and in six colonies along the coast of North America – three in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and three off the coast of Newfoundland. North American birds winter along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts; of particular interest to Rochester birders are the immature birds that wander into the Great Lakes in fall and early winter. Gannets nest in dense, raucous colonies on isolated stacks and uninhabited islands, often on ledges of cliffs, less often on gently sloping land. Males and females are similar in size and appearance, bond for life and both share in all aspects of parental care; the single egg is incubated “under the highly vascularized webs of the feet.” Gannets take 4-5 years to reach adult plumage. The North American population was estimated at 144,596 in 1999, and increasing. (BNA 693: 1-2, 6, 20)
Local history
A second-year bird off Durand-Eastman Park during the 1940 Labor Day weekend – “making its sensational spear-head dive” and giving its harsh call – was the first of our sightings. (WBR, 9 September 1940, 23 October 1950) Seven years later, a startling flight occurred on 19 October 1947 when “a number of Gannets, estimated at nine birds in all, were observed along the Lake Ontario shore west of Rochester. . . Six were seen off the Charlotte Pier,” Beardslee and Mitchell report. (B&M: 92) Even in 1974, John Bull considered this a “most exceptional” count for a species that was still “extremely rare inland.” (Bull, p.67) More, perhaps some of the same birds, were seen later that year, one remaining to be tallied on the Rochester CBC on 21 December.Reported every year but one from 1947-53, then a gap before four immatures were tallied in November 1958. Two were seen from Russell Station on the 27th (Listman, Moons), one at the East Spit on the 29th (Listman) and one at Manitou on the 30th (Listman). (GNR)“It is difficult to believe that the local records we have of the Gannet truly reflect the frequency of its occurrence here,” John Brown wrote in 1958 (BA, 4 Dec 1958), adding eight years later, “Many a year goes by without a single report of a Gannet.” (BA, 13 October 1966) “It may be that a constant watch would yield a record or two of the species each year.”That is exactly what has occurred – and in some years, Brown’s expectations have been greatly exceeded.
Status
Monroe County annotated list (1985) described this as an irregular, very rare fall and winter visitant. With increased lake coverage in recent years, it is now recorded almost annually.
Occurrence
There have been about 92 records since 1948, totaling about 100 birds, with more than half the records coming in November.

The Monroe County annotated list (1985) indicated a range of dates from 1 September to 7 January. On 4-6 January 1980, during a mild winter, an immature in an emaciated state was in Hamlin, “staggering about on a West lakeshore beach, hopelessly pecking the debris for a last piece of sustaining food.” (LG, February 1980; KB 30:107) It soon expired and was “neatly packed in a large green garbage bag in a Brockport freezer.” Another immature was at Irondequoit Bay (Griffith) on 5 January 2002. (LG, March 2002)Almost all of the birds seen here are dark, immature birds. And most are seen strictly as flybys, viewed for the few minutes it takes them to go from one horizon to the other. Most likely they are coming up the St. Lawrence River from its gulf. Most observed by the Hamlin Beach Lakewatch project were moving west. (Ewald and Sherony, p. 32)Usually only one or two in a season. Ten at the Hamlin Beach Lakewatch in 1998, when G. Albanese was principal counter, and another eleven off the park during the fall of 2002, were exceptional. (Ewald and Sherony, p. 32; KB 53:47) Even more exceptional were the 14 in fall 2005, “despite the unusually warm weather.” (LG, January 2006) Another 11 were reported from 5-30 November 2007. (LG, January 2008)And yet, none were reported anywhere along Region 2’s lakeshore during 2006. (LG, February 2007) Maxima: 9 on 19 October 1947 along the lakeshore west of Rochester. (B&M, p. 92) 4 on 12 November 2002 (Symonds, mob) at Hamlin Beach SP. (LG, January 2003) Misc.
The sight of one of these birds winging along the lakeshore invariably gets the “juices flowing.” When Mike Davids saw one flying west along the beach at Charlotte in November 1982, he raced to the nearest pay phone and called Patty Reister at Payne Beach. “She got outside just in time to get a good view of the bird as it flew past.” (BA, 18 November 1982)

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