My good old friend Jase is over on the IOM at the moment with his family and today he had booked a trip out on Bob Taylor's boat "Gemini".
The Manx BirdLife crew gathered for the trip and it turned out to be a fantastic day out on the sea with Bob and his crew, John and Peter.
We started with the obligatory stop at the Sugarloaf rock, it was great to see plenty of well grown
Kittiwake pulli on the ledges and there were a few pulli
Gullemots both on the ledges and also on the sea. Looks like they have both had a good breeding season for a change.
We then motored on through the Calf Sound and loacted a
Basking Shark off the West coast. Bob expertly put the boat in the tidal stream, cut the engines and the shark came right alongside the boat several times. It was HUGE! Almost 30ft long and a good 6 or 7ft across!
A pot buoy was sighted drifting in the tidal stream and was recovered in the landing net for use by Bob. On bringing it aboard we found a
Lumpsucker fish attached to the underside. A great little fish and one that looks like it belonged in some tropical sea, not several miles off the Isle of Man.
At this point Jase and I had a view of a
Shearwater that got our attention as being brown above and 'smudgy' looking below. The contrast between it and the numerous
Manx Shearwaters in the area was very noticeable. Unfortunately it was rapidly heading into the glare of the Sun and away form us. We both had thoughts of
Balearic Shearwater but couldn't nail it down on the split second, poor view we had.
We then reached the wreck of the 'Ringwall', about 6 miles or so West of Port Erin and spent a while fishing.
Good numbers of
Mackerel were brought aboard for bait and a few
Spur Dogs were also caught. Other species caught included
Whiting,
Haddock and
Grey Gurnard. A
Minke Whale also gave a couple of brief views to the West of the wreck as it surfaced.
Jase and I then saw another brown shearwater come across the stern of the boat and this time there was no doubt as to its identification. Out went the shout for '
Balearic!'. It perfromed well during the brief view, banking several times to show its undersides and turned to show the head/breast too. Fantastic!!
On the trip back I used up some of the left over
Mackerel bait to 'fleyg net' 2x
Herring Gulls, one of which turned out to be a control! The control was given one of our colour rings as was the new bird.
A great day out with some really good friends. I just wish I had remembered my camera!!!