harbour porpoises

We managed to get both our morning and afternoon trips in today, despite the questionable forecast. This morning on the Bay Discovery the birds were clearly feeding over bluefin tuna, but the tuna weren’t showing themselves particularly and neither were the porpoises which were doing the same thing. There were lots of seals hauled out…

We had a Discovery Voyage trip this morning which is quite late in the year for us to be running this four hour trip. It was a cracker of a morning, starting clear and calm with a hint of low sunshine. Quite soon after leaving the harbour we started picking up fins in the distance,…

It was a murky day today but the wildlife brightened everything up. We started at the island watching seals start to haul out, then as we went south, we appeared to motor into a cloud which was pretty persistent for about an hour. We watched some fish boiling away at the surface and some kittiwakes…

More puffins today on our Discovery Voyage trip! (Josh always gets the puffins ☹️ ).  We also had lovely views of a load of other seabirds including Manx shearwaters, guillemots, razorbills, and kittiwakes, and the seals were very curious today. A small pod of harbour porpoises in the late afternoon light were a lovely  end…

We had a three hour trip with eleven passengers this morning in an increasing southerly wind. The wildlife was a bit awkward to photograph today as it was unpredictable and the waves were a bit choppy but we managed to spot harbour porpoises (who were hunting deep so only surfacing intermittently), bluefin tuna and some…

Today was living proof that you don’t need sunshine and calm blue seas to have an amazing trip. We took some students from Cornwall College Newquay out this afternoon, and there were grey skies, a bit of mizzle and some rolling southwesterly swell. However the sightings were fantastic. After watching a couple of seals bobbing…

It was a cold windy day today and felt rather autumnal. The wind was from the north, so it wasn’t rough, just cool and choppy further offshore. We had two Ocean Discovery trips – on the first one we saw plenty of harbour porpoises and gannets, and at the end of the trip watched some…

Today was one of those days when the harbour porpoises completely outshone the dolphins. They were feeding energetically in large pods, and because at this time of year they are eating shoaling fish like the dolphins, this appears to give them more free time. And what do they do with this free time….they become much…

We had two Ocean Discovery trips today. The morning was still rather murky but it brightened through the day and we had blue skies and sunshine by mid afternoon. On the morning trip we were treated to an amazing porpoise display. As we head into the autumn, we see more mating behaviour and this involves…

It was day of flat seas, hot sunshine  and superb sightings today. It didn’t take long until we found our first cetaceans, and there were absolutely loads of them. These were harbour porpoises and I’m not sure we have ever seen so many in the bay. They are even out dolphin-ing the dolphins and it’s…