Seals

Island Life – Part 2 – Birds & Mammals

/ nrowberry / 2 Comments

I thought it would only take me a day or two to write part 2 of this, but with 2 heatwaves this month, my productivity (always dubious at the best of times) has plummeted. But here at last are some of the gorgeous birds and mammals we saw on the Isles of Scilly in June.

I took a couple of bird-watching boat trips; one with my long-suffering family and one alone when they’d had enough of me. The Scillies are a fantastic place to spot seabirds; it made me wish I was better at identifying them. So please feel free to correct me if I’ve got any of these wrong. As so often is the case, I didn’t really have the right camera lens with me and that combined with rocking boats and user error, means none of these are exactly amazing photos, but hopefully they’re recognisable at least.

First up, what I am assuming to be a Black-headed Gull, due to its black head! I realise though there are other species that would fit this somewhat basic description, so please correct me if I’m wrong.

The next one I am at least confident is an Oystercatcher, although it does to my eye look quite like the penguin from Wallace & Gromit with a red beak stuff on it! Again a shockingly bad photo and I can’t even blame a rocking boat for this one as I think I took it from land.

 

We saw a few Shags, often standing looking quite aloof with a crowd of other birds nearby. Seen alone they are quite gawky looking birds and I always think there’s something a bit archaic about them.

One of the few seabirds I can readily recognise is the Gannet. It’s distinctive enough that it’s pretty much unmistakeable.  This one floated serenely by the boat, looking as if it had recently had a right good feed.

There were of course lots of large gulls present everywhere. We passed a fisherman, hauling in lobster pots at one point and the sky around his boat was just full of an assortment of gulls. Some have black backs (Black-backed gulls?), some have grey backs – to my disappointment there doesn’t seem to be one called a Grey-backed Gull, so I’m guessing these are Herring Gulls?

All the seabirds above are beautiful, but I can’t help having a soft spot for the Auk family. Apparently there are 5 species seen regularly in the UK and we were lucky enough to see 3 of these. The most plentiful that week were the Guillemots – sleek black/dark brown and white birds, gathering in groups on the rocks and in the water.

Then there were the Razorbills; I never saw these on the rocks, only in the water and often swimming with the Guillemots too. Razorbills are named for their famously sharp-edged beaks, ideal for grabbing fish.

But of course top of the wish list was to see Puffins and thankfully we did. The Skipper wouldn’t take the boat too close to the cliffs where the puffins were nesting as we didn’t want to disturb them, but we were close enough to see several outside their burrows.

Then there were the ones we saw on the water. It’s no surprise that they are everyone’s favourite seabird; what’s not to love about those cheeky little faces.

So on to the mammals. I did see a split-second glimpse of a dolphin from the Scillonian on the way back to the mainland, but that was it as far as cetaceans went. Grey seals were much more obliging. Again our skipper managed to get close enough for us to see some hauled up on the rocks, but not too close to frighten them.

At first we thought it was just adults, but in the second photo from a slightly different angle, you can see a seal pup at the back of the group. I was so thrilled; I’ve seen seals many times (even sieved seal poop for a living for a while – that’s a whole other story), but never seen a young one like this!

But the mammalian star of the show for me had to be a surprise we found on Tresco. I say surprise, but obviously the locals knew they were there as they’d been deliberately introduced. Red Squirrels! We saw a sign saying there were red squirrels as soon as we entered Tresco gardens, but I thought we’d be lucky just to get a glimpse. But then we turned around and there was a beautiful squirrel sitting right there, enjoying some nuts. I was fumbling with my camera , sure it would disappear, but no it was clearly unfazed by our presence and carried on snacking. The best views I’ve ever had of a red squirrel.

We saw several more as we enjoyed the gardens, although none as close as that first one. It must be an ideal habitat for them and they seemed to be doing really well.

So that’s my round-up of the wildlife we saw on the Isles of Scilly. It really is a fantastic place to visit, although I’m tempted to say “no it’s dreadful” to stop loads of people going and spoiling it! The isolation, the warm climate (warmer than most of the UK at least) and beautiful scenery make the islands the best wildlife destination I’ve been to in Britain and I can’t wait to go back.

Scilly Isles – Eastern Isles

/ nrowberry / 3 Comments

Next instalment on our recent trip to the Scilly Isles. This time we were out on a glass bottom boat tour of the Eastern Isles – small uninhabited islands with unusual names like Little Arthur and Great Ganilly. There were lots of interesting rock formations around, all covered with lichens, which provided sufficient interest until we got to the wildlife.

As it turned out we didn’t actually see very much through the glass bottom (a few jellyfish and a lot of seaweed), but what we saw all around more than made up for it. Most of our time was spent watching seals – Grey Seals to be precise. The Scilly Isles have a large and nationally important colony of grey seals and we were lucky enough to see quite a few on our trip. At first we just glimpsed them bobbing about in the water, watching us as much as we were watching them.

But our guide (and skipper) soon spotted one hauled out on a rock. He identified it as a fully grown adult male grey seal. Unfortunately it seemed to have got something stuck around its neck – perhaps old fishing gear. It didn’t seem to be causing him any problems and hopefully as he was already an adult he won’t grow any more to cause it to tighten around his neck.

We continued round the various rocky outcrops that make up the Eastern Isles and eventually spotted another seal hauled out. All the seals seemed to be quite used to the boat and tourists and look unfazed by our visit.

We had seen photos online of seals swimming under the boat so you could see them through the glass bottom. One of the reasons why we were maybe not lucky enough to see this was the presence of a group of snorkelers. The snorkelers were also there to see the seals and the seals in turn were much more interested in the people in the water than coming over to our boat.

Maybe next time we go to Scilly we could try the snorkelling thing ourselves – it must be amazing to swim with them and they clearly weren’t bothered, just curious.

As you’d expect of a boat tour around any part of the Scilly Isles – seabirds were abundant. Fairly early on a flock of oystercatchers took off over the boat, sadly too fast for my slow camera action. We got one of our few sightings of Fulmars while on this trip, beautiful birds albeit with slightly odd looking beaks.

There were quite a few Great Black-Backed Gulls around. I must admit before this trip I’d never been able to tell the different gull species apart. While still far from expert, I am starting to learn a few things. So I’m fairly sure this is the Great Black-Backed, since it was a large gull with pink legs, a yellow beak with red dot and of course a black back! (As always though happy to be corrected if I’ve got it wrong!)

While we were there, one of these gulls caught and killed a shag. The gulls of course have to eat too, so although it was a bit sad to witness, it is all part and parcel of life. The unfortunate final outcome though was that the gull then managed to drop the dead shag down amongst the rocks, where it didn’t seem to be able to reach it. So the poor thing died for nothing – although I suppose something else probably ate it in the end.

The biggest surprise of this boat trip came in the shape of birds I’d never associated with the sea – Peregrine Falcons! Our guide mentioned that there was a pair nesting with chicks on one of the islands, but we hadn’t really expected to see them. But sure enough they were there. We couldn’t get a proper look at the adults but the two chicks were clearly visible sitting on rocks waiting for the next feed. They were quite high up and we couldn’t get very close, but it was still lovely to see.