Farmers keep discovering exhausted or even injured birds in their fields. Most then get volunteers from the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV) to take care of the animals. This is what happened on Friday when a farmer encountered a large white bird on a stubble field near Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, which had obviously made an emergency landing there.
When the ornithologists arrived, the surprise was huge. The bird was a gannet. The sea and shorebirds are not normally found on mainland at all. In Germany they only breed on the island of Helgoland. So far there have only been four records in Bavaria.
“We were amazed,” says Ferdinand Baer from the bird station in Regenstauf, where the seabird is now being nursed. “Gonnets can travel hundreds of kilometers a day in search of fish. But only over the sea or along coasts.” The seabirds are very impressive. If only because of their up to 1.80 meter wingspan. They also form large colonies in which several thousand breeding pairs raise their young. The colonies place them on steep rocky islands off the mainland. Gannets are also more trusting and not very shy. That’s why they’re called “boobies.” They’re easy to catch. In the past, they enriched the rather meager menu of the seafarers.
How exactly the gannet got into the Upper Palatinate is a mystery. According to the LBV, one possibility is that it has been blown to Bavaria by the thunderstorms and storms of the past few days. The only thing that is certain is that he did not come from a zoo and was not kept in an aviary anywhere else. “Because he doesn’t wear a ring and isn’t chipped,” says Baer. “And in the five zoos that keep gannets in Europe, nobody is missing either.” In Regenstauf, the bird is to be nursed back to its normal weight of three kilos. He willingly accepts the mackerel that Baer and his helpers offer him. At the beginning of August he will probably go to the North Sea, where he will be released.