Picture
it. The wide open sea on a quiet afternoon. Perhaps some land is visible in the
distance, but mostly it’s water, wild and free. The greenish briny waves pitch
and slop, hurling and slopping themselves into the air, then dropping into
their own troughs. Perhaps a few dolphins paddle and play nearby. Maybe a whale
spout can be seen in deeper water. Above, a flock of white birds swirl and soar
and, occasionally, cry out.
Overall,
it’s simply Mother Nature doing her wonderful ocean thing.
Then -
- “Plop!”
What
was that? A bird just fell from the sky
“Plop!”
There goes another and “Plop!” another!
Suddenly
“Plop! Plop! Plop! Plop!” it’s raining birds on all side! They’re simply
pouring down from the sky by the dozens! Have they been poisoned? Or it a
vicious wind driving them out of the sky?
No.
They’re just grabbing a quick lunch.
These
are the amazing Gannets, called by some “Missile Birds”, and for good reason.
These are North Atlantic sea birds, pretty similar to the sea gull in that they
love to hang around the beautiful sea and have long made it their home. If you
ever saw these mostly black and white birds flocking about the water, you might
actually mistake them for sea gulls, until you saw them close up. Their heads
are about the color of a toasted marshmallow and their bodies and beaks are
shaped differently.
But
that is by far and away not their most striking difference.
They
wait until a school of fish bunch together in a huge sphere-like swarm
sometimes known as a “bait ball”. The fish do this to protect themselves from
some predators. It doesn’t seem to work against all predators. Once a Gannet
sees one of these bait balls, he throws himself straight into the water.
Starting at the height of a 30 storey office building, they dive at speeds of
up to 60 miles per hour. At the last minute, just before they hit the surface of
the water, they fold their wings straight back and extend their necks a bit, so
their whole, sleek bodies are shaped straight as an arrow or - - a missile.
They also have padding built into their bodies to protect them from the impact.
The can then continue to missile straight down to depths exceeding 40 feet!
That’s a pretty dramatic descent! Down there, they grab a fish for lunch, and
then return to the surface. Sometimes, they’ve even finished eating before they
break the surface.
After
they bob awhile and catch their breath, they take off and start again. All in a
day’s work.
It’s
amazing and kind of humbling to think about how big and powerful we think we
are, until we consider the things some of Mother Nature’s much smaller
creatures can do with ease that we could never handle!
These
incredible birds are just one of the millions of amazing creatures that
populate our vast waters, one more excellent reason to protect Mother Nature’s
beautiful oceans.
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