Visitor

We came home this evening to find this young gannet sitting at our front door.

It seemed in pretty good health and at first we thought it just needed a wee rest but then decided it had maybe caught it's leg on something as it was a bit swollen and some of the webbing on it's foot was torn. It didn't seem to distressed just having trouble taking off.

It certainly wasn't frightened of us at all. Ruairidh actually got pretty close to it and took some great photos*. It pottered about around the house for a couple of hours, at one point we thought it was looking for an invite into the kitchen, then finally decided to go to sleep next to the porch.

We called a friend who knows about birds and she said it probably just needed somewhere safe to spend the night and offered to take it as she had a pen that had just been vacated by a fulmar. So it's tucked up there now and hopefully it will recover and head off to the high seas soon.

It certainly is a beautiful bird. The adults are stunning in there white and cream plumage with electric blue eyes and pinstriped feet but I've never had a good look at a juvenile before, the pattern of spots is incredible. It was also amazing to realise just how big they are. Even Madeye stayed out of it's way.


* He might upload one to blip but he was out this evening so didn't have time.


Edit - just remembered, later on when we came back after Tai Chi, there was a huge frog sitting at the front door. Why are all these critters trying to move in with us?