Scilly views

Last post from my recent trip to the Isles of Scilly - it wasn't all about point blank views of exceptionally rare seabirds, migrant warblers, waders and flycatchers. There were also cetaceans, sharks, butterflies and a variety of fish and the views of the islands to enjoy. The advantage of the new 100-400mm lens I got just before this trip was that I had more flexibility to photograph this wider range of subjects.

We passed a pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphins just north of St Martin's one morning

A very long, swept back dorsal fin - compare to...

...the stubbier fin of Harbour Porpoise

Blue Sharks are caught and tagged on the Sapphire to support research into their conservation



Landing one can be quite a struggle

This Cod caused some excitement among the fishermen on board

As did this Ling - a cross between a Cod and an Eel

This striking Cuckoo Wrasse had seen better days

Pollock was the main catch landed on the evening trips

The peculiar Ocean Sunfish came close to the boat

A more typical view

The view over Porthloo

The boardwalk through Lower Moors

Porth Hellick

Gorse and Heather near Giant's Castle

The small runway at St Mary's Airport

The Sapphire: this was ' home' for about 24 hours over the course of a long weekend

Sunset at sea after an evening pelagic

Another sunset view

The Strand in Hugh Town

Small Copper on St Mary's

 

Marine buoy

For reasons which remain unexplained, despite the passage of four decades, my older brother used to annoy the hell out of me at bedtime by singing the theme tune to popular '70s cartoon series Marine Boy over and over again. Observing the same dynamic at work in my own sons, I am forced to conclude that it was just for the sheer hell of annoying the hell out of me.

Sharing unresolved questions from childhood, however, was not why I lured you to this page. Rather, it was to impress upon you the fact that seabirds are not the only things to be seen from pelagic trips out of the Isles of Scilly, of which I sampled a few last month. I will attempt to illustrate this, in accordance with the custom and practice of this blog, via the medium of photographic images of variable quality, supported by captions with an equally variable likelihood of aiding your understanding of what they depict:

Ocean Sunfish: these large bony fish float just below the surface, sometimes weakly flapping a dorsal fin above the waterline, like a slightly inebriated, morbidly obese fish-damsel in distress 

Blue Shark: these are caught, tagged and released as part of a research project which has helped build a better picture of their highly migratory behaviour. This one was photographed as it was being landed...

...and here it is on deck. A Porbeagle Shark was also seen but not photographed unfortunately.

A pod of Common Dolphin was seen coming back into St Mary's one evening

A very difficult species to photograph as they move at such high speed - these my most successful efforts to date

Back on the beach at Porthcressa, this jellyfish stood out from the crowd - I think this is a Compass Jellyfish Chrysaora hysoscella

A pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphin crossed the path of the Scillonian III on the way out...



...and a pod of Common Dolphin, given away by a frenzy of plunge-diving Gannets, did the same on the way back, not far out of Penzance