Lundy Time

We’ve made it over the mid-winter hump, survived Christmas and its excesses, and rung in the New Year, so it’s time to look towards what we’ve got coming up in 2019 regarding training.

At the moment, we’re in the process of sorting our weekend courses out, but we are taking bookings for our Lundy Adventure that will run Saturday 29th June to Thursday 4th July.

Join us for a jam-packed programme of activities, including rock pooling, snorkel safari, seal survey, guided walks, and sea watch.

This 6-day course is a great opportunity for you to gain and improve your seabird, sea mammal, and seashore wildlife identification skills, both from our detailed presentations, and through sustained field observation.

Full details can be found on our website here.

Autumn Sightings Round-Up

Autumn saw some of our ferry routes closed for the off-peak season, or buffeted by the obligatory storm, but despite that, our volunteers still managed to undertake many surveys.

September was a bit quiet survey-wise, but amongst the gannets and gulls where some nice sightings of Great Skua (Bonxies) and Arctic Skua. And of course, thanks to seal pupping season, several large white balls of fluff.

October may have been Halloween month, but the only scary thing facing our surveyors was the sea swell during the Portbury/Southampton-Santander trip. However, lots of marine life was still getting recorded, including pilot whales and a minke whale.

November was cold and blustery, and despite some choppy seas, dolphins, porpoises, seals, gulls, and gannets were seen in plentiful numbers

Be sure to check out all our survey summaries over on our website.

Stay tuned!

Lyme Bay is home to Europe’s most southerly population of White-beaked dolphins, which MARINElife have been monitoring since 2007. We can even identify individual dolphins by the shapes and marks on their dorsal fins and bodies

Why are we telling you this? Because we will be launching a new and exciting MARINElife campaign in the spring based around these amazing dolphins.

So keep your eyes glued to social media over the next few months, as we share more information about the species in the run-up to the release of the project’s details.

In The Marine News

UK wildlife audit shows rollercoaster 2018 due to extreme weather.

Groups of pilot whales have their own dialects.

Record number of seal pups born at Farne Islands colony.

Seal pups at risk from toxic chemicals present in their mothers’ milk.

Wisdom The Albatross, World’s Oldest Wild Bird, Lays Another Egg.

Counting the breaths of wild porpoises reveals their revved-up metabolism.

Japan decides to leave the IWC to resume commercial whaling.