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

 

Book of the month

Some while ago now I promised a shameless plug for a new book in which I have some photos. As I said at the time, I'm not on commission or the plug would be more shameless, and on more widely read media, than this. But during a week in which I am unlikely to get out with the camera, it's also a good excuse to dust off the originals of pictures which appear in various guises in 52 Wildlife Weekends, the latest offering from veritable polymath and all round good sort, James Lowen.

I got to know James through a mutual friend in Geneva who always said 'you should get in touch with James, he's into birdspotting and that'. But it took a White-tailed Plover at Rainham Marshes for me to actually bump into him. Since then we have religiously made no effort whatsoever to meet up, in the certain knowledge that Dusky Thrushes and Black-bellied Dippers will appear with monotonous regularity, providing opportunities for chance encounters.

This handsome Short-eared Owl appears in a chapter on the Dee Estuary

If you buy the book, which you obviously should, you will find squeezed within its 234 pages a year's worth of ideas on how to enjoy some of the best wildlife encounters Britain has to offer. It was meticulously researched by a process which must have been an incredible hardship for the author, trudging around Britain, forcing his weary eyes to be clapped upon wildlife spectacle after tedious spectacle, barely able to summon up the enthusiasm to raise his camera and take pictures. On the subject of which, it's nicely illustrated, not by my modest efforts I mean, but by proper photographers whose names you'll recognise like David Tipling, Rebecca Nason and Hugh Harrop, as well as the author himself.

52 Wildlife Weekends will at the very least give you some additional ideas on how to get the most out of a trip you may have in mind anyway, but should also take a lot of the hard work out of planning a short wildlife break. 'Ah', I hear you say, 'but planning the trip is part of the fun for me'. If so, don't worry, it doesn't, like, book the hotel for you, or pack your suitcase or anything. It's just a book, for God's sake.

This Bottlenosed Dolphin illustrates a chapter on Invernesshire.

Just a book, maybe, but one which has something for everyone. If you're an inexperienced wildlife watcher, buy it for a tantalising menu to get your teeth into. If you like a challenge, buy it and try to do them all in a single year to see which comes first: bankruptcy or divorce. And for the keen but narrow-minded bird lover, buy it to broaden your horizons to other critters which, but for a twist of evolution, might still be tickable.

For the hardcore wildlife know-all inclined to snort 'pah, I don't need a book to tell me where to watch wildlife', buy it to tick off all the places you've already 'done' to confirm your sense of superiority over people with commitments, families, friends and stuff. And if you're so rich that you don't even have to wait for the weekend to go watch wildlife, then...well, I dunno, hire some of the rest of us to work as Sherpas or something, just don't rub it in. It sounds like you can afford to buy it whatever and at £14.99, probably less on Amazon, it's barely the price of a pint of milk. No need to check that with the nanny, it's true.


This Chough appears on the contents page. Taken at South Stack a few years ago.

So really there's no excuse not to buy it, except perhaps grinding poverty, a total lack of access to all good bookshops, or a complete disinterest in wildlife and/or weekends. Well done James for getting the right balance between entertaining prose and useful information. And thanks also for the idea for my own book: 1000 Birding Hotspots To Visit At Someone Else's Expense Before They Die. Coming soon to the bargain basket of a remaindered bookstore near you. Pre-order for next year's Birdfair and I might even write it.

The author James Lowen sporting what his mates describe as 'full camo gear' at the Dusky Thrush twitch, May 2013

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

Dolphins at the Bill

A couple of Bottle-nosed Dolphins off Portland Bill on Sunday morning made up for the lack of seabirds. Modest types these, just pootling around before heading off west into Lyme Bay, none of that fancy-pants breaching like the show-offs which graced Swanage Bay this time last year. One more can be viewed here on the Portland Bird Observatory website.

Dorset Dolphins

A few more shots from our recent chance encounter with Bottle-nosed Dolphins off the Dorset coast:

Uneventful boat trip...

...until this pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphin turned up. Taken from the regular boat from Poole to Swanage on a family day out. Spectacular.