Sunday 16th June

It seems as though there are a few sunfish around at the moment. On Sunday afternoon’s Bay Discovery trip, though things were generally very quiet feeling in terms of birdlife and cetaceans, we saw a medium sized sunfish as we sailed across the Bay. This was travelling at the surface so we could see its fin and a bit of its body, rather than basking with its whole body visible. Everyone got to see it before it flip flopped its fin and dived down. There are a lot of studies into things like bottlenose and Risso’s dolphins and bluefin tuna and basking sharks in UK waters – a sunfish study would be very welcome. They are very intriguing animals and we have sightings data dating back sixteen years.

We also saw a grey seal sleeping and a few groups of shearwaters and fulmars. I was wondering if the little gull chicks on the island had been affected by the storm on Friday, but they were still there and growing nicely.