Dear friends, thanks for your interest! I called this pic "Capital of Birds", because it is one of the biggest colonies of the "Atlantic Gannet" (morus bassanus). This pic was taken at North Berwick at the Firth of Forth and shows the Bass Rock, nearly 10 kilometers away from the harbor. The Bass Rock is a stumble of an old vulcano and gave the gannets their name. The Atlantic Gannet lives from the canadian coast in the west to Scotland, Norway and Germany, too, in the east. For breeding he prefers rock islands like this here or rocky cliffs. What looks like snow are the gannets and their nests. Today exist 45 colonies of the Atlantic Gannet. The biggest recent colony is St. Kilda, a small island of the Scottish (!) Hebrides (60 000 couples). Bass Rock here is the second in the row with 48 000 couples. Since 1991 exist a very small colony on the german isle Helgoland, a rock island near the german Northern Sea coast. It has only 93 nesting pairs, a small village....... In Germany we call the bannet "Bass Toelpel" or "Bassaner Goose" or "Scottish Goose". The population grows wordwide at 4% per year. The reason is not really known. The gannet is not hunted today and nobody steals the eggs. Times changed: The oldest gannets colony, described in 1274, was at the isle of Lundy. It existed till 1909, then all gannets were hunted for eating and the colony died. The gannets never came back till today. A brief Bass Rocks history: The earliest owner of Bass Rock was Landor of the Bass, who got this isle from the hand of King Malcolm III. in 1030 or 1031. 1497 King Jacob IV. of Scotland stayed here as a visitor, and in the 17.century Bass Rock was a jailhouse for Jacobite prisoners. In 1902 the lighthouse were built after plans of architect David Alan Stevenson (1854-1938. Hope you enjoy this pic. Please feel free to look in and give a comment. Thanks for your comments for my older pics and a special Thanks for those who took my last pic as a favorite... Till later, your billy c.