Spectacular gannets have great muscle and staying power — it's sad to see bird flu hit them so hard

Gannets swallow their catch headfirst and consume many times their own weight

Sunrise at Skellig Rock, the second largest Gannet colony in Europe. Picture: George Karbus Photography

Most fishers have a trained eye for nature-watching. Even those who don’t have much interest in marine wildlife have a very practical reason for at least observing the movement of nature — hovering seabirds can tell them where shoals of fish are to be found.

One of the biggest and most noticeable of these birds is the gannet. For a distance of a mile or two when skies are clear, gannets can be seen high above the waves when fish are in deep water, but they fly low when fish are near the surface.