Gaspé days 3, 4 and 5 – Bonaventure Island gannet colony

Chris warned us to dress warmly, bring sun protection, wear a hat. Here I am, ready to go, long-sleeved tshirt beneath a long-sleeved turtle neck sweater beneath my puffer jacket, Tilley hat in place, sun glasses on, back pack on, camera gear over one shoulder, tripod over the other. Feeling a bit like a sherpa!

We had a reprieve the first day as the sea was too rough to go out in a zodiac. We met at the pier at 8 am rather than 5 am. I was pleased. A ferry took us to Bonaventure Island and we were able to ditch our belongings on a small truck-lilke vehicle that would drive our gear to the colony. The sea was rough, but it was a wonderful warm day and I was able to shed the jacket and sweater along the way.

The hike to the colony was gruelling – 3.4 km uphill except for small bits. I have circled in red the start and end points of our hike; we took the middle path across the island. Parts of the hike were beautiful – like this rare relatively flat bit. While I found the hike up gruelling, I found the return even more so. My knees were not happy campers and let me know! I confess I didn’t go every day to the shoot, partly because I was sore and partly because we would be shooting the same colony of birds. I felt that I had lots of photos and was happy to work my leggy knots out in Percé.

A gannet colony is very noisy. A male and a female mate for life and identify each other in the mass of birds by sound. This colony is about 120,000 adult birds strong, with perhaps another 6,000 immatures and teenagers. They have been severely hurt by avian flu. This colony is now the largest in the world.

Here’s a selection of my favourite photos:

These are adult nesting birds, hence the space around each nest.
These are teenaged birds mimicking the behaviour of the adults.
These are teenaged birds, not nesting, so they are close and intimate!
A teenager bringing seaweed or grass to a potential mate is like a young man bringing flowers to a young woman
Oops, dropped the grass on your back!

There was a lot of loving going on in this colony. It doesn’t look like fun to me, but I’m not a gannet! 😉 I find the peanut gallery intersting.

I’ll leave you with my favourite gannet photo. It reminds me of Snoopy in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

I went back to The Fisherman’s House for dinner last evening and had the halibut with greynoble sauce. Yummy! I still have one evening in Percé. I imagine I will return for final meal.

C’est tout pour l’instant. À demain.

7 responses to “Gaspé days 3, 4 and 5 – Bonaventure Island gannet colony”

Anonymous

June 7, 2025

The Gannets in flight are ever so graceful. The eyes are so piercing! I did a boat tour in Shetland that took us to a nature reserve and they were there in abundance. We were the informed that about 60 – 70% of the gannet population died due to the bird flu. We were, also, informed by the tour operator that they were recovering in numbers but no where near what they had been in the past. I very well understand when you say the knees complained vociferously. Ever so glad you had good weather. Enjoy your time on the Gaspe! EC

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