The weather has now taken a significant toll on this year’s survey and in order to have some coverage on all the remaining transects they are going to need to be shortened. Transects 12-17 are normally 90-120km long but will need to be shortened to 50-70km.

Transect 12 was first up today, we left the relative shelter of Lundy around 05:30 and made our way to the start of the transect just off Hartland Point in North Devon. The wind hadn’t dropped at all overnight and was still over 30 knots, and for the first 40-50 minutes with the effects of wind against tide there was spray coming over the bow every other wave – surveying was tricky. After a while, although the wind hadn’t decreased, the tide had changed so the seas weren’t quite as steep and spray became less of an issue.

Guillemot, Kittiwake and Razorbill were the order of the day, with side helpings of Gannet and a handful of gulls. Fulmar have been in very short supply this year, so it was great to log five along the transect. Despite the conditions we managed to see some Common Dolphin – or rather they came and see us – and we had three encounters with six animals.

The transit between transects 12 and 13 was excellent for photo opportunities. Some Common Dolphin put on a good show with plenty of leaping close to the Endeavour, some of the results are shown here.

We built up a coterie of dozen or so gulls, made up of three Great Black-backed, five Lesser Black-backed, and four Herring Gull. They were riding the updraft on the windward side of the Endeavour but would drop aft to check for any food and then move forward along the ship passing the bridge wing at eye level – excellent photo opportunities. There was also a lovely mi of ages/plumages amongst them with first and third calendar year birds. I know many birders can barely bring themselves to look at gulls, let alone try and age them, but I think it’s fascinating how they change over the course of the four-five years it takes for them to mature. A mix of the species and ages are shown here.

Turning on to transect 13 was like entering a different world, the bridge was suddenly quiet and our progress serene and comfortable as we now had the wind and sea behind us. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned on more than one occasion in these blogs, all the Kittiwake, Gannet and gulls we had been seeing on the transit disappeared the moment we started the new transect. Numbers stayed low throughout, with Kittiwake, Guillemot, Gannet and Razorbill topping the sightings chart.

Five Puffin took the survey total into double figures, a very poor year for them and a very distant Arctic Skua was the first of this year’s survey. We never see large numbers but to log the first this late in the survey is unusual.

We had a little rash of four Common Dolphin encounters where they snuck in, only showing themselves at the very last second as they came into the bow. They redeemed themselves slightly when a pod of 14 put on a good show of leaping in towards us from some distance out.

The Chief Scientist was in good humour in the afternoon as he was able to fit in two trawls on transect 13, he had feared we wouldn’t be able to fit any in given the weather. Both were good samples, the first of Sardine the second of Spratt.

If we are very lucky we may get slightly lighter winds over the next couple of days – fingers and toes crossed.