As I mentioned in the
last blog, we had to spend a couple
of days travelling from Liverpool to Falmouth at the start of our cruise so
that we could fix a problem with the ship (which went smoothly) and then
transfer our remaining scientists on board ready to get to work. Because our
research site is 300 km offshore, we tend not to see too much in terms of
wildlife once we get over deep water so the extra time spent off the Welsh
coast provided some nice opportunities for wildlife-spotting!
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| Hello down there! |
We had really nice sightings of most of the usual suspects:
kittiwakes, gulls, gannets and fulmars were the most common birds, as you'd
expect really, but because we were a little further offshore we also had a few
sightings of Manx shearwaters which was really nice. Shearwaters and petrels
live almost entirely at sea (usually quite far offshore), and only come to
shore to breed in burrows (a bit like puffins). Unfortunately, when they come
ashore they're also nocturnal, which means your chances of seeing them are pretty
small most of the time. I can't pretend I got any decent photos of them, but
they are always nice to see!
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| A crappy photo of a distant Manx shearwater |
We were also joined by a small pod of common dolphins en
route, which looked like they had a calf or two with them. They didn't
stay with us for too long, but they were bouncing around enough to grab a
few
shots! I've never had a great deal of luck photographing these guys
because they move around so fast, but I'm pretty pleased with how these
photos came out.
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| Common dolphins under a wave |
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| Common dolphin |
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| A small group of common dolphins leaping |
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| Common dolphins |
Oh - and we also briefly had a couple of stowaways with us
too! They seem to have left us at Falmouth though so we won't be adopting them as cruise mascots!
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A couple of racing pigeons briefly stowed away with us for a trip to Falmouth.
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