This is a tale of many birds and too many balloons!

A 06.00 start saw us on the bridge of the Power to begin the survey in beautiful sunny weather but with a disappointingly disturbed sea state.  This alternated between 3 and 4 for much of both outward and inward legs of the trip, with calmer seas only on the approach to and on leaving Dublin harbour.  This was not so good for cetacean detection, but we were more than compensated by large numbers of seabirds throughout the trip, with the only appreciable lull in activity at mid-survey on the return leg.  There were so many bird records that we were in danger of running out of survey sheets, but the CLdN Officer of the Watch came to our rescue by copying some more.  We eventually filled 18 sheets!

Bird of the survey was Guillemot which predominated the whole trip, but there were regular fly pasts of Manx Shearwater, Kittiwake, Gannet and Razorbill.  Indeed, a feature of the survey was a steady occurrence of single Guillemot and Razorbill flying together in pairs.  Other species were scarce and recording only two Fulmar was disappointing.

Notable terrestrial birds included passage flocks of Whimbrel and Ringed Plover heading north, both species within their peak spring passage periods, while there was a single Swallow on the outward leg.  The return leg brought a number of Commic Tern and Sandwich Tern on passage, as well as our only two cetacean sightings of a single Common Dolphin and what were probably a pair of Harbour Porpoise.

The approach to Dublin harbour brought the usual Common Gull, Shag, and Cormorant, and a pair of Shelduck flew very close to the bow of the ship.  However, numbers of Black-headed Gull were notably low.  The harbour itself provided a good opportunity to study the differences between flying Common Tern and Arctic Tern attracted to the manoeuvring ferry and presumably the food source this was disturbing.  The resident Black Guillemot, a Grey Heron, and somewhat surprisingly a tame Barrel Jellyfish kept us company as the Power was in dock during the freight turnaround period.

Perhaps the most significant event was on the return trip as we approached Heysham off the sands of Blackpool as the light was failing.  Here, very large numbers of gulls were gathering to roost on the shallow water, predominantly Herring Gull of all ages but with a handful of Lesser Black-backed Gull and Common Gull as far as we could tell in the poor light.  Similar dusk flocks were noted on the equivalent May surveys last year.

Perhaps the most disappointing feature of the trip was a total of thirty different deflating party balloons drifting on the sea surface!  Several had Union Jacks on them and were no doubt a remnant of the VE day celebrations of the previous week!  There was also the usual mixture of brightly coloured abominations with trailing cords!

 

Our thanks to the captain Jaak Karm and crew of the Power for their wonderful hospitality and the very helpful steward for his catering prowess to accommodate the vegan in the team!

Rob Petley-Jones and Dave Shackleton, Research Surveyors for MARINElife (Registered Charity No. 1110884; Registered Company No. 5057367)