Gannets are a pretty cool seabird that I first saw August last year. Here’s a picture.
I assumed when I took this photo that a gannet was an extremely elusive bird, and that there was a good chance this would be my first and last time seeing this mighty bird. Thankfully, I was wrong, completely wrong. Because, when this year (2026), I went on holidays near Courtmacsherry in June, I saw many, many, many gannets!
And when I saw another gannet, I assumed that that might well be my second and last time seeing one, same for my third sighting, until it quickly became apparent that, I was going to experience the absolute delight of getting better acquainted with gannets for the entire holiday!
Gannets, and many other birds, were drawn to the waters off Woodpoint by a large abundance of fish. To be honest, usually I’m not big on watching birds hunting. Yes, the bird needs to hunt in order to survive, but I still find it deeply unpleasant that one animal must die so another can live. But I admit, despite this, I’m quite fond of watching birds going fishing. Perhaps it’s because while I know that birds are sentient and have pain receptors, so it will always be upsetting to see a sparrowhawk take a small bird, I don’t know whether this is true of fish, so there is always the hope that the fish feels no pain and doesn’t experience much when a bird kills them. But, another important factor is that, frankly, watching gannets going fishing is extremely fun!
Over that few days, I learned to recognize gannets pretty much by their dive alone. If I saw one off in the distance, much too far away to identify even by their really distinctive plumage, I would know them instantly when they would suddenly “dive bomb”, the water, emerging mere seconds later after obtaining a meal. They dive at speeds of sixty miles an hour!
https://www.les-oiseaux.com/en/northern-gannet.htm
As you would expect, their necks are works of evolutionary wonder, so that they don’t well, die when they make that impressive dive.
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/diving-gannets-avoid-breaking-their-necks
It was quite euphoric to see. I would watch as a gannet flew gracefully, high above the water, then, no time to waste, a fish has been spotted! And the gannet plunges at quite magnificent speed towards the water, and disappears beneath, leaving behind a massive splash.
And then, apologies to anyone who doesn’t know video games but this is the best way I can think of to describe it, it’s as as if the gannet “respawns”. In video games, if the character you play dies, depending on the rules of the game, they may “respawn”, a short distance from where they were killed, so they may again try to complete their mission. So after a gannet has completed a dive, they “reappear”, in the water, a short distance from where they dived. So it’s as if the gannet has respawned so they may attempt to win the game again!
So for most of my time near Courtmacsherry, I felt like I had stepped into a beautiful dream, watching gannets flying in the air, and then all of a sudden hitting the water at full force, hoping the fish that would keep them alive for another day lurked beneath the surface. I felt truly blessed to be sitting there on Woodpoint, watching these wonders living out their magnificent lives.
Would you believe me if I told you the best was yet to come?
So what happened was I decided to head back, so I started walking through Courtmacsherry Woods. Along the way is sets of steps that take you onto the rocks beneath the wood, so I stepped down on the rocks to have a look at the ocean, and what did I see, but an unbelievable amount of gannets, only about ten meters or less away from me!
The gannets were completely untroubled by how close I was. I’ve actually noticed this with a lot of birds either swimming in, or flying over the ocean. If a bird is on land, and you get too close, they will often fly away, but if you are on land, and they are on or flying above water, they seem to be happier for you to get much closer. Perhaps it’s because it would be very unusual for someone standing on the rocks to all of a sudden dive into the water, so they assume it won’t happen this time. Perhaps in their mind, when they are on the water, the land is just “some other location”, and they are unconcerned with it, just like they are unconcerned about a place one hundred miles away. Either way, I was closer to the gannets than I ever thought I would possibly manage, and I couldn’t have been happier!
When I do wildlife photography, I love to get close-ups of an animal’s eyes, though I recognize that this may well come from a speciesist way of looking at it. The reason I like getting “eye shots” is that rightly or wrongly, I see the eye as in some way representing the intelligence, and personality, and sentience of the animal. Of course, this may be a bit human-centric, after all, not all animals have good sight, some have much better smell. Are there animals where the shots I really need to be getting are shots of the nose?
Anyway, I was delighted with the amount of eye shots I got of the gannets. Bird eye photography is often something I struggle to get, but on that day on the rocks it was just, eye shot, another eye shot, another eye shot again, and so on and so forth.
And I’ve always loved that many birds in terms of their appearance tend to sit in a weird place between elegance and alienness. Gannets are graceful in the skies, with their long, sleek wings, but their faces have such an otherworldly quality to them. And the yellow plumage around their heads, while beautiful, has a strangely surreal quality to it.
There are birds I don’t know will I ever see again, or at least see up close, for the rest of my life. I have only seen a kingfisher four, perhaps five times, ever, and I only ever got one photograph. And yes, I’ll probably see one again, but there’s a good chance only as a quick “blip” in the corner of my eye, and I will turn around quickly, but it will already be too late, the kingfisher will be long gone.
I thought, in August 2025, that my encounter with a gannet might well be quite the same. One quick sighting, and then, never seeing one, for a long time, or possibly, never again.
That was what I thought, when I sat down on Woodpoint, and saw so many gannets sailing through the sky above the blue ocean. When I saw one dive for the first time I never thought I would get to see it over and over again. And I certainly didn’t think I would get the absolutely amazing opportunity to get within ten meters of these wonderful birds.
An unforgettable few days spent getting acquainted with one of the wonders of nature.
Ponderings Of An Autist 