Wildlife of any sort was scarce for the early part of the survey. However, as Alderney came into view, we saw an adult Gannet accompanies by an all-dark juvenile flying strongly west, perhaps heading further south for the winter. Around the same time, we also had our only cetacean encounter of the day. A very energetic pod of 8 Common Dolphin approached the ship to bow ride, we had lovely views of them leaping and splashing on both sides of the ship, before they disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
As the setting sun gave us some intense orange and red streaks across the western sky, we recorded a last flurry of Guillemot and Kittiwake, before concluding the survey some 8 miles north of the Jersey coast.
We are most grateful to DFDS for hosting us on Stena Vinga – as this was only the third running of our monthly surveys on this ship, we were pleased to introduce MARINElife to Captain Johan Karlsson and thanked him and his crew for their hospitality on board.
Jenny Ball and Helen Mears, Research Surveyors for MARINElife Registered Charity No. 1110884; Registered Company No. 5057367
Weather
Initially misty, then bright but overcast conditions, wind ENE F4-5
Species recorded
Marine mammals
- Common Dolphin Delphinus delphis 8
Seabirds
- Gannet Morus bassanus 7
- Guillemot Uria aalge 15
- Herring Gull Larus argentatus 1
- Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla 19
- Razorbill Alca torda 2
- Gull sp. 12
- Auk sp. 7