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Story: Gannets and boobies

Chick with down

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Chick with down

This one-month-old gannet chick, pictured with an adult, is covered in a fluffy down and growing rapidly. Chicks lose their down feathers during the second and third months as they develop the speckled plumage of the juvenile stage.

Using this item

Department of Conservation

Reference: 10042076

by Dick Veitch

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How to cite this page

Maggy Wassilieff, Gannets and boobies – Gannets: life history and feeding, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/5831/chick-with-down (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Maggy Wassilieff, published 2 March 2009.