Gannets | Sulidae

Genten | Alcatraces

Large seabirds with a cigar-shaped body, long pointed wings and a wedge-shaped tail; the heavy conical bill has no hook, but its finely serrated cutting edges hold a slippery fish. The eyes are set well forward and give the depth judgement the plunge dive demands: from ten to thirty metres up the bird falls into the sea with its wings swept back, air sacs under the skin of head, neck and breast absorbing the impact. One egg a year, on a raised mound of seaweed and droppings on a cliff ledge or rock stack, in colonies that can run to tens of thousands of pairs. The chick hatches black and naked and needs four to five years to reach the adult white with black primaries.