birdwatching

As can be the way of May, there was a bit of a quiet afternoon today, after the boom of the last few days. We were on the wrong tide for seals, so they were all elsewhere, but there were some seabirds to see. Nesting season is in full swing. It did feel a little…

We had two Ocean Discovery boat trips today. On the morning tour we found two pods of common dolphins. The first juvenile pod came racing in to bow ride giving a fantastic encounter. We watched the second group, which was made up of mother’s and calves from a distance initially before they also came over…

We had a two rather warm and sunny Ocean Discovery boat trips today. This morning we started the trip with a great northern diver as we left the harbour, then sailed south to look at numerous active gull and gannet groups feeding on the inshore fronts. Following a trail of guillemots and razorbills we found…

We had an Ocean Discovery today on a flat sea with hardly any wind. First of all we watched a great northern diver catch something and devour it – not sure what the victim was, but the diver gave us good views! Further south in a shiny area of plankton we picked up some movement…

We had a Discovery Voyage this morning. After the strong wind recently conditions were tricky for spotting wildlife but we know it’s out there because Duncan and Josh spotted a minke whale surface in the bay. Is it the same one that’s been hanging around for a while? There were countless seabirds out there, mainly…

We had a four hour trip today in bright cold conditions, perfect for sailing. We spotted two minke whales! One of them was probably the same one as we saw the other day and the second was a small juvenile, who do sometimes appear at this time of year. They were very fast, so no…

We saw our first fins in a while today and excitingly one of them was an adult minke whale. We see most of these from July onwards but sometimes do see them in the early spring too. This was spotted by Josh just after we had been watching some resting common dolphins, which were quite…

We had such great seabird sightings on today’s Ocean Discovery. Conditions were probably better than they have been so far this spring, with sunshine and calm blue sea (though the breeze was still chilly). There were thousands of Manx shearwaters out there flowing like a current from east to west, gliding past the boat and…

Just a two hour trip today. At last the sea was flat and we had a really favourable westerly breeze, perfect for sailing almost the whole trip. We were a few hours off low tide, but there were already four seals hauled out on the rocks and several more in the water. There were several …

After today half term is going to get  pretty windy, so we were pleased to have two trips today. This morning’s Ocean Discovery passengers saw large groups of harbour porpoises feeding with gannets – they were even leaping and breaching like dolphins as they charged around after fish. We also had lovely views of seals…