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Sightings Blog

seals

Wednesday 23rd April

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…

Sunday 20th April

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…

Thursday 17th April

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…

Wednesday 16th April

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…

Sunday 13th April

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…

Thursday 10th April

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…

Wednesday 9th April

We had unbroken sunshine and blue sky all day again for our Ocean Discovery trips, though it was quieter for wildlife. April is mostly really inconsistent like that. We saw several seals on the island in the low morning sunlight, and flocks of seabirds flying on the breeze further offshore. This afternoon the wind really…

Monday 24th September

What a four hour trip we had this morning. Spotting conditions were more or less perfect and we saw more or less everything. There were three groups of common dolphins in all, who gave us some great views as they swam beside the boat. There were very large numbers of harbour porpoises seen, hunting quickly,…

Monday 23rd September

We had a great day today with some of the Master’s students from Exeter University, who came out on the boat to try to spot some marine vertebrates. They certainly did that. We started off with some amazing views of bluefin tuna – real whoppers were breaching close inshore near some fishing boats. We also…

Sunday 22nd September

It was really gloomy today for our Ocean Discovery and Bay Discovery trips, but all things considered we were really lucky not to get wet, especially after yesterday’s thunderstorms. We had a couple of excellent trips with some really good wildlife sightings. This morning we very quickly spotted something round jumping repeatedly out of the…