Looe island seal survey and bird monitoring. 27th May 2021.

Nesting Oystercatcher

It was a great privilege to be back on Looe island again this month for our regular Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust survey in conjunction with the Looe Marine Conservation Group and the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

After a bit of a "jigging around" of days we alighted on the new jetty at about 8:45 to be met by Jon & Claire the wardens and several members of the CWT Marine group who had spent the night on the island.

It was also a pleasure to meet up with the 4 CWT volunteers who are going to be resident there for 2 months of the summer. What a fantastic opportunity for them and I'm sure they'll be worth their weight in gold helping to get lots of the jobs completed.

We had a maximum of 6 seals, with 4 hauled out and 2 in the water during our low tide count, there was quite a bit of disturbance from boats and kayakers with one group causing me to get vocal as they came in under the main cormorant colony and caused a lot of stress to the birds.

I won't post the images of those causing the disturbance as there were young people involved and it was the fault of their leaders and instructors so they will be contacted separately.

Apologies for the poor quality of some of the images as I suffered from a rare phenomenon in Cornwall "heat haze"! This causes degradation of the images on pictures taken from a distance and it really was a problem with the long distance seal photos.

 

Grey seal hauled out.

Grey seal in the water

Here are a few more bird images from the day.

Cormorant colony

Cormorant colony

Cormorant portrait

Cormorants displaying

Cormorants displaying

Cormorants displaying

 

Oystercatcher

Oystercatcher nest with 3 eggs

Another Oystercatcher nest with 3 eggs

Oystercatcher pair.

 

Fulmar

Great black backed Gull

Shags

Bar-tailed Godwit

Goldfinch

St.George's Island reserve Looe, Cornwall. 4th June 2019.

Oystercatcher

Had a great day on the Cornwall Wildlife Trust reserve at St.Georges island at Looe in East Cornwall with the Cornwall Seal Group and Research Trust on Tuesday.

A bit damp and a choppy boat trip over but well worth it!

Good to meet up with friends again and share our common interest in wildlife.

Here are a few images from the day including a Common Seal which in Cornwall is anything but Common!

Also a group of Eider ducks which again are an unusual sight in the County in the summer months.

Eider ducks and drake

Common Seal

Common Seal

Great Black-backed Gull

Fulmar

Great Black-backed Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Cormorant

Oystercatcher eggs and nest

Fulmars on the North Cornwall coast. 2nd June 2019

Just love watching these "masters of the air" effortlessly glide along the cliff edge using very breath of air that nature provides.

The North Cornwall coast this afternoon. 29th April 2019.

Whitethroat

 

What's not to like about a Whitethroat that's just arrived back in Cornwall after wintering in Africa.

The North Cornwall coast buzzing with them this afternoon.

I also took a few minutes to spend with the Fulmars who haven't laid their egg yet on this their traditional nest site.

Also watched a Ravens nest with 4 chicks in it that looked ready to fledge any day soon.

Looking north east from Pentire  near Polzeath

A yawning Fulmar on it's ledge.

Fulmar

4 big nestlings in this Ravens nest

Seabirds on ledges. 17th April 2016

A few simple images which I really like.

I took them this morning on the North Cornish coast and I love the composition of the small birds and the large cliff environment.

Fulmars, Skylarks & Stonechats

Fulmars

This pair of Fulmars have taken over what looks like a ravens nest on the North Cornish cliffs.

Possibly the raven had built on a traditional Fulmar site and was subsequently ousted. Still from the photographic side of things it was very close and in decent light!

I've also included a few more images from today's trip to the cliffs.

Fulmar

 

 

 

Skylark

Skylark

 

Male Stonechat