Sightings Blog

Happy May Day! Spring has most certainly sprung, though it was a lot cooler and greyer here than in other areas. We had a lovely trip this afternoon with a great variety of seabirds spotted, including kittiwakes, shearwaters and more puffins! At one site we spotted a group of several male and female Eider ducks…

It was a great trip this afternoon in the warm spring sunshine. There was still a choppy sea running after the strong wind of yesterday, but it wasn’t too bad. Quite often with easterly wind you can see very little, but today we very quickly found a pair of Risso’s dolphins who cruised past the…

We left the harbour on this mornings Discovery Voyage in the ‘mizzle’ but this defiantly did not hamper today’s sightings. We stumbled across a large amount of seabirds fairly quickly. They mainly consisted of razorbills, guillemots and Manx shearwaters, many of them returning with sandeels in their beaks. Pulling into the island we counted 5…

There was plenty of seabird action today, with big rafts of shearwaters and gannets who had been feeding very recently. There spotted a guillemot with a sandeel still in its mouth – at some point we will see some puffins. There was a grey seal around the island. The tide has been fairly unfavourable for…

We had a four hour trip this afternoon – boy it was cold! No fins today, but plenty of Manx shearwaters and fulmars and lots of exciting sailing on that northerly wind. There was a seal hauled out on the island and mating season is clearly underway for the gulls – they have very little…

We had a three hour trip this morning in the sunshine and a fairly brisk northwesterly wind, which we haven’t had for a while. It was quiet for cetaceans but we had great views of the seabirds and the coastline was looking spectacular.

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday though rather quiet for wildlife. We ran two Ocean Discovery, with 12 people on each – thanks for joining us today. This morning as well as the seabirds and a grey seal hauled out, we saw the biggest comb jellies we have ever seen though they were too deep…

We had another lovely day on the water today. This morning there was hardly a breath of wind, and apart from the temperature, it felt like a July day out there, with common dolphins and masses of seabirds feeding almost from the start of the trip. They were very intent on their feeding and it…

After a miserable couple of days of weather, what a great day we had today. It’s often the way that after a strong westerly blow and rain, we get fab sightings and so it was on both the morning and the afternoon Ocean Discovery trips. This morning we saw 3 different pods of common dolphins…

Today we had our first Discover Marine Science day. After the sunshine of last week, in the strong westerly wind it felt freezing! We initially had some introductions to species ID, photo ID and the marine geography of Mount’s Bay in the office, before heading out. There were plenty of grey seals around the island…

What a beautiful sunny week it’s been – there’s  hardly been a cloud in the sky. The sea was a bit calmer today after the easterly breeze finally dropped to almost nothing, so we were able to head a bit further west and out to sea. There were plenty of seals, on and  round the…

The fine sunny conditions continued today after a dull start, and we had a three hour followed by a two hour trip. This morning we had a very exciting sail in the strong breeze, after watching some very entertaining seals round the island. Seabirds skimmed past, though they were too fast for photos. This afternoon…