These versatile birds thrive in the air and sea. With their six-foot long wingspan, gannets can hover, glide, soar and dive. With folded wings, they torpedo down to depths of 20 feet or more to snatch fish from the edges of the Faroe Islands shoal.
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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.