Noisy. Often smelly. And absolutely unforgettable.
Bonaventure Island, off the tip of Quebec's Gaspe peninsula, boasts the world's biggest colony of northern gannets.
It's also touted as the easiest to reach. A boat ride from the village of Perce and an easy hike put you less than two metres from more than 70,000 birds.
Gannets migrate to Bonaventure every spring. The male arrives first, staking out the same nesting site used the year before.
The female lays a single egg between mid-June and late July. Both parents take turns incubating it and making forays to the Gulf of St. Lawrence for food.
So close together are the nests that you're greeted with something resembling an immense white carpet of birds, squawking, squabbling, taking off to go fishing or landing clumsily with beaks full of seaweed to add to the nest.
The gannet is a striking-looking creature, white with a butter-yellow head, piercing blue eyes and black-fringed wings with a span of two metres.
Getting a good photo is a no-brainer. There's only a rope between you and them.
Late-afternoon sun deepens the reddish brown colour of Perce Rock, photographed from the Gaspe peninsula village of Perce. (Doug English/QMI Agency)
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