seabirds

Happy  solstice. It started off murky and damp with a few rolls of thunder first thing so it was a good thing we had a later start than normal for this morning’s trip. The sun broke through and we started the trip by finding come common dolphins in the morning calm. We also saw a…

After the easterly wind of yesterday, it was rather quieter out there for fins today. We saw some amazing seabird feeding on both morning and afternoon trips though, with gannets, Manx shearwaters, kittiwakes and other gulls, and guillemots all feasting on small baitfish. It was surprising not to see any dolphins or porpoises with all…

We had two Ocean Discovery trips today and had great sightings on both. This morning we found a small group of common dolphins who stayed with us a while, lots of feeding seabirds and an ocean sunfish. We also saw a herring gull divebombing a heron, which we haven’t witnessed before. This afternoon we watched…

This morning’s trip was originally supposed to be a four hour tour, but as forecast, there was a lot of south west wind overnight, which created some big chunky swell. So we kept it to three hours and didn’t go too far west, but even so, the surf was an impressive sight. We found some…

On today’s boat tour, we had a surprise on leaving the harbour this afternoon when a very small minke whale popped up just in front of us, then behind us then was gone! People are often concerned when they see little whales on their own, but minkes wean and are independent when they are quite…

We had a four hour trip in the sunshine today on a beautiful calm blue sea. Heading south we picked up a small pod of common dolphins who were just chilling after feeding near some shearwaters and guillemots. They checked us out for a little while before peeling away so we left them alone. We…

Another beautiful day – we need to make the most of it because things are due to change next weekend! This morning we saw a couple of grey seals at the island, before finding lots of common dolphins and seabirds and had a lovely sail on the southerly breeze. This afternoon we saw just a…

A quieter trip today with no marine mammals spotted – at least no alive ones. We did find another dead seal and also what we figured used to be a bottlenose dolphin which had been dead a long time and been pushed down the Channel by the easterlies. The teeth looked massive. We saw a…

It was a wet windy start to the day so re arranged our morning Discovery Voyage trip and went ahead with the afternoon Ocean Discovery trip once it had stopped raining and calmed down. We had two different encounters with harbour porpoises, as well as a grey seal including plenty of  birds. These included great…

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…