Sightings
To give you an accurate idea of what you might see on your trip, we list all the animals we see every day we run trips rather than just a selection of our 'best' sightings every few days. It would take too long to individually list the species of seabirds we see each day so unless there are exceptional numbers of a species or an unusual sighting, we list them as 'seabirds'. Sightings archives for 2007 and 2008 are linked at the bottom of the page.
| August 2010 | ||||
31st August |
South easterly winds made it very choppy today so we only did our first trip. The choppy waves also make wildlife spotting hard. We saw a grey seal -image- and seabirds. |
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30th August |
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29th August |
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28th August |
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27th August |
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26th August |
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24th August |
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22nd August |
Today we saw two basking sharks -image, image, image-, three harbour porpoises, grey seals -image, image- and seabirds. Over the last few days of rough weather I found this great film clip about harbour porpoises (great to see the research being carried out on a sailing boat).They can be tricky little cetaceans to spot and view but when they decide to give you a glimpse in to their world it's always a magical expereince. |
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19th August |
A grey seal and seabirds in very choppy conditions today. Looking at the forecast we won't be out for a couple of days now. |
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18th August |
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17th August |
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16th August |
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15th August |
It was a quiet day for us today we saw a harbour porpoise, a couple of grey seals and seabirds. |
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14th August |
The northerly wind stuck around again today making for some exciting sailing. We had a glimpse of a harbour porpoise and a skipping ocean sunfish. We also saw grey seals -image, image, image- and seabirds including loads of shearwaters -Manx shearwaters- |
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13th August |
Grey seals -image- and sebirds today in a stiff northerly breeze. |
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12th August |
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11th August |
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9th August |
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8th August |
It was a lovely day out there today with some great sightings. We saw two groups of harbour porpoises feeding there were 9 individuals in the second group -image, image, image, image, image, image, image-. We also saw a very co-operative ocean sunfish -image-, some basking grey seals -image, image- and a variety of seabirds.. |
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7th August |
It was breezy and choppy again today but in the afternoon we managed to find 6 feeding harbour porpoises which was a nice surprise. We also had glimpses of grey seals taday and saw a variety of seabirds including a Balearic shearwater. We left the camera ashore today to get pictures of the new boat so no wildlife photos I'm afraid. |
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5th August |
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4th August |
It was a fairly choppy and windy today making wildlife spotting difficult. We saw grey seals and seabirds. |
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3rd August |
The catamaran is proving to be a bit of a common dolphin magnet! We saw them again today. They were in a less boisterous mood but we still got some lovely views -image, image, image, image-. We also saw grey seals and seabirds. We had a report of a fin whale 7 miles offshore too at about the same time as we were watching the dolphins. |
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2nd August |
We had a fantastic day today. The catamaran really came in to its own this afternoon when we found a pod of more than 50 common dolphins. They bow rode and leapt around the boat, surfacing right underneath passengers on the trampoline and seemed to have a great time flowing along with us as we sailed. We left the camera on shore to get some shots of the boat sailing so have no pictures. However click here for a fantastic video taken by one of our passengers. We also saw grey seals -image, image- (we had the camera with us this morning) and seabirds. Here's a nice snap of the catamaran setting out on the afternoon trip -image-. |
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| July 2010 | ||||
31st July |
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30th July |
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29th July |
It was a little quieter out there today. We saw grey seals -image- and seabirds -kittiwakes-. Here are a few more shots from the catamaran -image, image- |
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28th July |
We had a great first day on the catamaran today and all our passengers enjoyed the experience of searching for wildlife under sail power. On the first trip we had great views of two groups of harbour porpoises feeding and travelling - Mark was chief harbour porpise spotter today and was the first to see both groups. The first group had over 8 porpoises in it (no pictures because we left the camera with Hannah so she could get some shots of the new boat. We also saw grey seals -image- and seabirds. Shearwater II loaded with passengers and ready to go -image, image, image- |
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25th-27th July |
Well it's been a long road but we are finally ready to run trips on our new sailing catamaran. She's fitted out and ready to go: comfortable, spacious and ready to offer true eco tours to our passengers - nothing beats racing along powered by the wind alone. We've had a frustrating couple of days witing for safety equipment but have made the most of the time it's given us. Here are some pictures documenting the naming ceremony -image, image, image- and our sea trials in the murky drizzle -image, image- |
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24th July |
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23rd July |
It was good to see a lot more birds around again today. Some feeding gannets -image- guided us in on a group of feeding harbour porpoises. There were also lots of Manx shearwaters -image- around today. The seals at the colony put on a great display for us too -image, image, image-. The catamaran passed its licensing exam today too. It's now licensed for 12 passengers and 2 crew. |
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22nd July |
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21st July |
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20th July |
There was a strange creature at the top of our mast today -image-. Wev've been getting the sailing catamaran ready over the last couple of weeks and we've nearly finished! |
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17th July |
After a few days of bad weather things finally calmed down enough to get out and run some trips. It's a good job we were able to get out today because it was a great day for wildlife. We saw our pod of bottlenose dolphins 14+ including the 3 juveniles we've been seeing them with. They were in a very sociable and acrobatic mood so they gave us a lovely display -image, image, image, image, image, image-. We also saw two basking sharks -image, image- and had some great views of seals hauled out -image, image-. As well as all this there were the usual great seabird sights -gannets- and a few jellyfish around as well -compass jellyfish- |
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12th July |
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11th July |
Today started off with some lovely views of four seals on the rocks -image, image- and an ocean sunfish -image-. We then saw grey seals at the colony -image- on the second trip and ended the day well with a great encounter with four basking sharks -image, image-. We also saw a lot of seabirds today -fulmar- including a sooty shearwater. The sea salt and sail festival is going on at Mousehole as well so there are lots of lovely luggers out on the bay -image- |
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9th July |
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8th July |
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5th July |
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3rd July |
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1st/2nd July |
We've had no trips for a couple of days because I've been bringing our new boat back from France. She should soon be licensed and ready to run trips. If you click here it will take you to the news page and the full story of the trip. |
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| June 2010 | ||||
29th June |
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27th June |
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26th June |
I was wrong about the basking sharks there were a few around today -image, image, image- I came close to getting a photo of a breaching shark today -image- you can just make out the fins as it's crashing down. We also saw two ocean sunfish -image- and a good number of grey seals -image, image, image-. We missed a pod of Risso's dolphins by about half an hour which was a shame. |
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25th June |
It seems to be getting gradually harder to find basking sharks at the moment despite calm conditions. We found two at the end of the day today -image, image, image-. We also saw an ocean sunfish we are starting to see them daily probably because there are a lot of jellyfish around -blue jellyfish-. We also saw grey seals -image, image- and seabirds -Manx shearwater, gannet and a gull- |
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24th June |
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23rd June |
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22nd June |
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21st June |
Wonderful weather again today - we saw basking sharks feeding and breaching again -image, image, image (these snorkellers are maybe a bit close for comfort) , image-. We also saw an ocean sunfish and a variety of seabirds -gannets-. There are also still a lot of jellyfish around swarms of blue jellyfish, moon jellyfish and also what appear to be small lion's mane jellyfish. |
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20th June |
The great weather has continued and so have the good sightings. Today we saw a pod of up to 16 bottlenose dolphins with 3 to 4 calves with them -image, image, image, image, image-. Further offshore on an earlier trip we saw 3 harbour porpoises -image- and on that same trip we saw an ocean sunfish -image-. We also saw basking sharks this afternoon -image, image- and we saw a good number of grey seals - image- and a variety of seabirds. We managed to snap some spectacular gannet pictures -image- |
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19th June |
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18th June |
It was a day of two halves today. The morning trip was fairly quiet although we did spot at least 3 harbour porpoises (my favourites) but they were hard for the passengers to spot in the choppy conditions -image- and we saw a grey seal at the end. The afternoon saw calmer conditons and over 30 basking sharks feeding close to the shore -image, image, image, image, image, image- including one with a nasty fin injury probably from a fast moving small boat. We also saw more grey seals hauled out in the afternoon sun -image, image- and a variety of seabirds. A summer day at the beach -image- |
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17th June |
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16th June |
Another good day for basking sharks - we saw more than 10 sharks today some with very distinctive fins -image, image, image- We also saw a lesser spotted dogfish or rough hound or rock salmon or lesser spotted catfish depending on your fancy. It was nosing around at the surface and came very close to the boat -image- so we saw the UK's largest shark species and its smallest today. There were a few grey seals hauled out on the rocks -image, image- and a variety of seabirds around too. |
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15th June |
We saw four basking shark breaches today. Breaching is usually a rare thing to see but this year we've seen quite a few breaches. We also saw sharks feeding at the surface -image-. There were grey seals hauled out in their usual places and a few at the colony as well -image, image, image-. There were a variety of seabirds around as well -gannet- |
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13th June |
Another good day for basking sharks with good sightings on both trips. We saw a shark breach three times in the morning along with other sights of them feeding and courting. In the afternoon we found a courting group with more than 6 sharks lined up behing each other -image, image, image, image-. We also saw grey seals -image, image, image- and lots of seabirds. |
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12th June |
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9th June |
Another summery day until the heavens opened just after the afternoon trip. We saw 4 bottlenose dolphins today and what's really exciting is that they were 4 new ones to our area. If they stay around the Cornish coast it's a healthy boost to the population. They are likely to be 4 adolescent males trying to find their way in the dolphin world. We got some great photos -image, image, image, image, image, image- we have many more fin ID shots too so we'll be able to catalogue them for research. We aslo saw grey seals and seabirds -fulmars- |
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8th June |
The sea was still fairly mixed up after yesterdays strong wind making for an exciting ride today. Despite the waves we still managed to see 3 harbour porpoises (a mother and calf and another adult) -image-. We also saw lots of basking sharks; upwards of 30 with lots more around passing by as dark shadows below us -image, image, image, image-. There could have been more than 100 sharks in the area. we saw two sharks breach again today. The usual seabirds were around as well. |
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6th June |
It was a bit breezier today and at first we struggled to find any wildlife about from a couple of furtive seals. However near the island at Mousehole we saw a basking shark twice erupt out of nowhere in a spectacular breach, once in the middle and once at the end of the trip! Again, everyone on board got to see it. We also saw sharks feeding -image, image-. There were a couple of grey seals around too -image- as well as a variety of seabirds -fulmars-. |
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5th June |
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4th June |
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3rd June |
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2nd June |
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1st June |
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| May 2010 | ||||
31st May |
We had a 'you blink and you miss it' sighting today and luckily no-one was blinking. We watched a basking shark breaching twice and everyone on the boat saw it! Unfortunately basking shark breaches are incredibly difficult to photograph so no pictures. There are a couple of theories on why basking sharks breach. The first is that it's part of the courtship ritual and the second is that they do it to bash parasites off their bodies. Both are probably right. We also saw other sharks feeding although they were surfacing and disappearing so no photos. The plankton they are feeding on seems to be lower down in the water column so they are spending most their time underwater. We also saw grey seals and got some good pictures -image, image, image-. There were lots of seabirds around too. |
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30th May |
There were a good few basking sharks around today. The plankton they're feeding on seems to be quite low in the water column still so for the most part they are below the surface out of sight. This means great care is needed when handling a boat around them. However with a bit of patience they are providing some great views -image, image, image, image-. We also saw grey seals in the water and on the rocks -image, image- and a good variety of seabirds. |
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28th May |
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27th May |
Just a one hour trip today in the sunshine and we saw seabirds. |
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26th May |
It was a overcast and a bit colder today but that didn't stop the wildlife. We saw a pod of 6 Risso's dolphins a mixture of adults and calves. They were close in to the shore which is considered unusual for Risso's as they are normally a deep water species. However the squid come inshore to lay eggs at this time of year and squids their favourite food. By this stage may camera battery needed charging so no pictures of the Risso's this time. We also saw grey sealsbefore the camera batteries ran out -image, image, image- and a variety of seabirds including puffins and a great skua. |
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25th May |
We saw our first ocean sunfish of the year today -image- it must be summer! We also saw a harbour porpoise -image, image, image- which was probably feeding on sand eels which are feeding on the thick soupy plankton that's around at the moment. There were also clouds of gannets -image, image- diving in to grab their share of the sand eels along with Manx shearwaters. We found lots of grey seals today in a few different places some in the water -image, image- and some on the rocks -image, image-. We also saw some Choughs great to see these birds getting a foothold back in Cornwall. |
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24th May |
It was oily calm out there today and the sea was thick with plankton. We saw three groups of harbour porpoises two of which had mothers and very new calves. The porpoises were lazily rolling over at the surface before disappearing for minutes to hunt fish then surfacing again. They gave us wondeful views -image, image, image, image, image (interesting nick on this ones fin which is great for photo id) -. We also saw two basking sharks -image, image-. The conditions around the sharks were choppier and I got a real sense there were a lot more sharks there but the choppy conditions were pushing the plankton deeper. The grey seals also gave us some good views -image- and there were lots of seabirds around, |
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23rd May |
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22nd May |
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21st May |
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20th May |
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15th May |
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14th May |
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11th May |
It was similar to yesterday today. We had our first trip out to the Wolf Rock, though as we got further offshore it became very choppy. There were a good number of grey seals out at the Rock -image, image, image-. Later on we saw them in surroundings that appeared more tropical -image, image-. There were also a good variety of seabirds around -guillemots- |
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10th May |
Grey seals -image, image, image- and seabirds today. There were a good number of circling gannets loosely grouped and diving sporadically. This behaviour suggests there is a good layer of zooplankton deeper in the water column. Any basking sharks that maybe in the area feeding on this will be below the surface. If the plankton layer rises we should start to get some good sightings. |
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8th May |
The weather turned colder again today but we still had a great trip out to Lands End. The seals at the colony were being entertaining with more the 7 individuals showing their inquisitive side -image, image, image, image, image-. We also had great views of diving gannets and saw a variety of other seabirds -shag- |
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6th May |
Today was a fantastic day to be out on the water. The sea was as calm as it gets and the wildlife was around in abundance. We started by seeing grey seals at the colony -image, image- we then headed offshore to find an abundance of birdlife including Manx shearwaters, guillemots, razorbills and gannets. We then spotted a huge feeding frenzy off on the horizon and headed out to investigate. Gannets were raining out of the sky and common dolphins were darting in and out herding the fish. The pod was made up of a mixture of adults and juveniles (about 30 in total) -image, image, image, image, image, image, image-. In amongst all this a small trawler was working demonstrating the close proximity in which humans and dolphins sometimes work. Are decreasing fish stocks increasing this cross over of worlds? -image, image, image- |
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3rd May |
Today we had a very memorable trip. Out near Land's End we witnessed a gannet feeding frenzy in all its glory -image, image, image, image-. There were maybe close to a thousand of them raining down into the water all around us. Utterly spectacular! We also saw a few curious grey seals, some of which swam over to us for a nose -image, image, image, and also some other types of seabirds -little egret, fulmar-. |
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Ist May |
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| April 2010 | ||||
25th April |
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18th April |
Fantastic conditions today. We saw a grey seal -image- and seabirds . Unfortunately we missed a pod of common dolphins by half an hour. When they're on the move they can pass through the area very quickly and if your timing's off you can miss them - next time! |
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16th April |
Just a one hour trip today as the easterly wind was even stronger. Thankfully the forecast as for light winds over the weekend. We saw a grey seal and seabirds. |
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15th April |
The easterly wind is still hanging around making the sea choppy and cetacean spotting difficult. Today we saw grey seals -image- and seabirds. |
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14th April |
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13th April |
A beautiful day -image- and a wonderful afternoon's sightings. We grey seals -image-, a harbour porpoise, seabirds and halfway through the trip had a truly fantastic encounter with a large pod (60-80 animals) of common dolphins -image, image, image, image, image, image- and trying to feed amongst them our first basking shark -image- of the year. |
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12th April |
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11th April |
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10th April |
The south easterly breeze made it pretty choppy today, making it hard to find wildlife but we saw a few seals -image- and some seabirds including lots of guillemots. |
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9th April |
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8th April |
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7th April |
A bright but chilly day today. On the two hour trip we had amazing views of a minke whale calf -image, image, image, image- which circled the boat looking at us. It was the smallest whale we have ever seen and also the closest to shore. There was another whale further away which presumably was its mother. There was a lot of fish in the area, which the seabirds were also feasting on. The whale came so close we even saw its throat grooves and the definitive white stripes on its flippers, which delighted everyone on board. We also saw a grey seal and a variety of seabirds -guillemot- |
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4th April |
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| March 2010 | ||||
27th March |
First trips of the season today. The left over rough seas meant we could only do one hour trips. Luckily the bottlenose dolphins were close by making both the trips very special ones. We saw bottlenose dolphins -image, image, image, image, image, image, image, image- (there were 5 adults and 3 juveniles in the group and one looked to be a fairly recent calf) and a variety of seabirds. |
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Sightings archive 2009 |
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Click here to see our sightings page for 2009 |
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Sightings archive 2008 |
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| Click here to see our sightings page for 2008 | ||||
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Sightings archive 2007 |
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| Click here to see our sightings page for 2007 | ||||
| Click here to see a map of our cetacean (whales, dolphins and porpoises) sightings for 2007 | ||||
