Day Five Part Two: Gannets Galore!

After a picnic lunch in Ark in the Park, we drove to Muriwai on the west coast, still just about an hour's drive from Auckland. Walked up a little path, turned the corner, and saw this:

 

A rare mainland breeding colony of Australasian gannets.

  

Canoodling

"You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours..."

 There are terns, too.

I kept missing the fantastic mating ritual where both gannets would mirror each other's movements in a neck dance. Every time I got the video camera out, they stopped. However I captured a bit more canoodling here, a lot of billing, necking and preening.

Back to the honeymooing pair:

"Ooh, missus!"

Ouch!!

Looking very pleased with himself...

This one looks a bit like a surreal cartoon character...

Territory squabble!

The crashing waves must appeal to human wedding parties, too.

The sea became very choppy; seconds after the wedding party cleared out I decided to take a video with my waterproof camera...

Which was this:

It was actually a bit worse than the video seems to show; I got completely drenched by a rogue wave. Luckily, next stop was the Salty Dog Motel.