Pelicans, Cormorants and Darters - Australasian Gannet
| More pictures | Australasian Gannet (Morus serrator) |  |
Australasian Gannet
(Morus serrator)
| Length: | 95cm |
| Wingspan: | 180cm |
| Colours: | White, yellow and black |
Description: Mainly white bird with creamy-yellow crown, long blue-grey beak with black lores and eyering. Grey legs with webbed feet. The wing is mainly white with black tips on the primaries.
Feeding: Diving at great speed from up to 30m in the air to catch their food. The gannets diet consists mainly of fish such as pilchards, anchovy, jack mackerel and saury.
Habitat: Cliff coastal and marine.
Region: Down the west coast along the south coast, and up the east coast almost to mid Queensland. Also around Tasmania and New Zealand coasts.
Breeding: Gannets usually mate for life and keep the same nest through this period. They nest in tightly packed, active and noisy colonies just out of pecking distance from their neighbours on rocky islands or remote rock shelves. Raising one chick a year. The egg is laid around September to November and hatches in 44 days. 3 months later when young leave they can travel thousands of kilometers sometimes from New Zealand right across to West Australia despite this being their first trip they still have a surprisingly high survival rate of 30%. About 5 years later they'll come back to breed and will continue to do so year after year for the rest of their life up to almost 40 years.
