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Guano & All That

Guano comes from the Gannet. The chick supplies the guano in the nest and it is reaped when the chick flies away. The parent birds are programmed to drop their guano in the sea where is forms the first building block in the food chain for plankton. Plankton eats the guano, fish eat the plankton and so on up to man that eats fish.

The Cormorant is not a good guano bird. It builds its nest with stuff that drifts on the sea. The guano is a lesser amount and mixed with a lot of sea weed that was picked up by the parent birds.

The seals eat fish by going below the school of fish and then striking from the bottom. This tends to encourage the fish to rise to the surface to get away from the seals. As soon as they break surface the birds dart down and catch the fish from above. This is why you need the seals in the area to get the fish to the surface so that the birds can get at them.

There is also a lot of microbial activity in the guano that will kick start any dead soil. Soil that has been exposed to the sun repeatedly by tilling will loose the microbial activity in the soil. Guano and fowl manure are good to get it started again.

The best time for guano was when there was no chemical fertilizer and the islands 30 foot high with guano were found and worked.