animalphotography - Northern gannets at Helgoland

This May i visited Helgoland together with 2 friends of mine and we did a lot of animalphotography there. It was avery nice holiday and we had luck with the weather. Nearly Every Day we visited the northern gannets breeding at the hills of Helgoland. There are several thousand of these birds on the rocks. Because they are used to humans and know that there is no danger form them you can get pretty close about 1-2 Meters distance is no problem. With getting this close you can pretty easy make some stunning pictures. Even without a 150-600mm lens.

Northern gannets at their Sex Game. Picture: Florian Glechner.

When we got there in May the birds where preparing their nest for breeding. You could easily watch the birds trying to mate and having sex with each other nearly all the time. It looked pretty violent when the male bit the female in the neck to get a better grip for sexual activities. Before having sex most couples had a habit to greet each other with thier peck. While the female protects the nesting site, the male search for nesting material in the sea. A lot of seagrass and small branches where collected to prepare the nesting spot. Because of a lot of wind blowing there on the hills it looked pretty exhausting just to land on the correct spot.

greeting ritual of the northern gannets. Picture: Florian Glechner.

Northern Gannet landing on the breeding spot. Picture: Florian Glechner.

Flying northern gannet. Picture: Florian Glechner.