Wildlife artist/photographer ROBERT FULLER studies a fascinating favourite.

GANNETS have always fascinated me and are an excellent subject to paint.

They are a large bird with pure white feathers finished with black wing-tips, a yellow head that fades gradually into its neck and a bright blue beak and eyes.

As an artist, I’ve always appreciated their graphic faces, which look like they have been drawn on with a fine black pencil line.

This bird is built for life at sea. It has an impressive 6ft wingspan and an aerodynamic shape which looks striking against a blue sky.

Gannets are currently nesting in fantastic numbers at a colony at RSPB Bempton. The population boom there has been a tremendous success story.

It began with just a handful of pairs back in the 1980s and has grown to the astonishing 9,000 pairs that now cling along the cliff edges.

The best place to see them is a rocky arch called Staple Newk.

This is actually now the biggest mainland colony in the British Isles.

We are so lucky to have it right on our doorstep.

Gannets are out at sea for most of the year, but from March onwards the pairs start to arrive back to their birthplace to begin an elaborate courtship with partners to whom they remain faithful for life.

The ritual begins with a bow. The pair will lower their heads to each other and then raise their beaks skywards, their bodies forming a perfect point, before they settle down to preen each other tenderly.

When I visited Bempton recently, the noise coming from the colony was deafening. Gannets swirled around the colony overhead, to-ing and fro-ing from hunting missions at sea.

They reach speeds of up to 60mph as they dive down from heights of up to 30m, their wings held out like daggers as they drop.

Gannets have air sacs in their face and chest to cushion the impact as they plunge into the water, much like bubblewrap would protect the impact of a fall.

They also have binocular vision, which helps them to judge distances accurately as they continue to pursue fish underwater.

The birds at Bempton were packed so tightly together on their rocky home that it was a wonder they could squeeze their large, cumbersome frames on to the small ledges where they nest.

Each nest was just pecking distance apart from its neighbour. But the proximity of these nests provides security to the whole colony, protecting the chicks from marauding gulls which fly overhead looking for an easy meal.

For me, the only disadvantage to this incredible sight is the vantage point.

Although I am able to get some wonderful eye-level flying shots of gannets, at Bempton you look down from the cliff top on to the colony quite some distance further below.

So last week I travelled up to the Bass Rock in the Scottish borders, home to a staggering 60,000 gannets, to see if I could get any better shots.

The Bass Rock is about 1.5 miles offshore from North Berwick and has a distinctive in shape.

From a distance, it looks like a large snow-covered boulder but the white sheen is actually gannets, and guano.

On a clear day you can spot tiny specks of white around its edges.

These are the gannets circling the rock.

It is difficult to secure a landing on this uninhabited volcanic rock island, and bad weather during my visit meant that it was impossible to land.

I made do with a boat trip that simply sailed around the rock, which although wasn’t the real deal, gave me a taste of what the island had to offer.

As I got closer, there were so many gannets swirling overhead that the sky was completely filled with them criss-crossing the sky, and every spare inch of rock was taken with nesting birds.

Occasionally, a gannet would stand up and reveal a big blue egg, or another time a white, downy chick.

The noise of the colony hit you, as did the overpowering smell that 60,000 fish-eating gannets could produce.

I was pleased to cruise around the Bass Rock, but was disappointed not be able to land.

I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed for next time. Until then I’ll be back at Bempton for another look.