New addition – MV Vanessa Jane
The MV Vanessa Jane has joined us for the 2021 season! She will be taking customers out on 4hr and 2hr fishing trips, as well as doing bespoke wildlife trips, carrying a maximum of 8 passengers.
If you would like to book her please contact us.
There’s much excitement at Mermaid Pleasure Trips, Penzance at the moment! The Wilson’s Petrel has blessed us with its presence on not one, but two of our Mini Pelagic trips. After seeing The Wilson’s Petrel on one of our Marine Wildlife Cruises, we decided to arrange a Mini Pelagic Trip on Wednesday evening. Many keen local birders came along and were delighted to see 2 Wilson’s Petrel even though the sea conditions were not particularly kind! We also saw 35+ Strom Petrel’s, 2 Great Shearwater, 2 Cory’s Shearwater, 2 Sooty Shearwater, 200+ Max Shearwater, Bonxie, Arctic Skua, Juvenile Yellow-Legged Gull, and even some common dolphins! Yesterday evening we set off again with more keen birders in terribly wet conditions and were delighted to encounter 4 Wilson’s Petrels along with Great Shearwaters.
We are running another Mini Pelagic Trip on Tuesday evening at 5pm and a Pelagic Trip on Saturday at 6.30am. Please call to book on 07901731201.
Well it had to happen eventually! Our first pelagic of 2017 looked like it was going to be a shaky start; 2 people never showed, the seas were much higher than expected and comfortable!! As a result the rafts of shearwaters etc feeding on the growing “slicks” were scattered and gone. In fact we could not get out to where we prefer to “chum” and had to turn back east to get the swell behind us before finally trying a bottle of cod-liver oil.
Well it had to happen eventually! Our first pelagic of 2017 looked like it was going to be a shaky start; 2 people never showed, the seas were much higher than expected and comfortable!! As a result the rafts of shearwaters etc feeding on the growing “slicks” were scattered and gone. In fact we could not get out to where we prefer to “chum” and had to turn back east to get the swell behind us before finally trying a bottle of cod-liver oil.
Mermaid ll’s first trip of the year set out on a January day that put a lot of the previous summer to shame! The sun shone and the sea was flat and a few birders down to start their New Year lists in Cornwall joined us mostly in the hope of finding the returning Pacific Diver. This proved just as elusive from a boat as it usually is from shore as we only had one or two glimpses. Despite heading back to where the bird had been, it had already gone further offshore in search of bait-fish. There was no lack of other wildlife however; 40+ Common Dolphin showed well, “Sammy” the dominant Grey Seal bull and some of his harem and pups were relaxing on St Clement’s Isle, and there were good numbers of seabirds; 15+ Great Northern Diver, Gannets, 5 Eider including the resident drake, 3 Velvet Scoter, 16 +Common Scoter, Guillemots and 1 Razorbill, and we even managed distant views of the Eastern Black Redstart currently resident under the Rockpool Café at Mousehole.
If you would like to book one of our trips for 2017, please call 07901731201 or enquire at www.cornwallboattrips.co.uk/enquiry and we will get back to you.
The first pictures are of the Common Dolphin and “Sammy”. The bird pictures are as follows:- Great Northern Diver, Gannet, Eider male and female in flight, Velvet Scoter, flock of Common Scoter, Guillemot, Kingfisher in Newlyn harbour, Shag with a wrasse. Photos and text by Martin Elliot.
We are glad to report sightings of Basking Sharks today. They were few and far between last year, but they have definitely arrived now. The Bay has been full of fantastic wildlife so far this year. The Bowhead Whale, Humpback Whales, Basking Sharks, Common Dolphins, Bottlenose Dolphins, Harbour Porpoises, Barrel Jellyfish and Grey Seals and its still only May! Hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the season.
What an incredible sight here in Cornish waters. A bowhead whale! These beautiful whales are usually found in Arctic or sub-Arctic waters, so you can imagine how dumbfounded we were to see one off Long Rock Beach! We watched in wonderment as this graceful creature surfaced and dived right in front of us, too stunned to even reach for the camera. As it started to move southwards, blowing as it went, we eventually regained our wits and tried to capture the moment. Unfortunately the photos aren’t great and most definitely do not do the moment justice, but they do prove that you never know what you might see here in Cornwall. The marine environment is changing every year and it is more than evident in the variety of species we are seeing here now.
A few facts on the Bowhead whale and why this sighting is so special:-
The bowhead whale got its name from its bow-shaped skull. It’s body is black with a whitish chin patch broken by what resembles a necklace of black spots. The bowhead is also identified by its lack of dorsal fin and two bumps which are usually visible above the water corresponding to the head and the back. The whale produces a V shaped blow from paired blowholes situated at the highest point of the head, often reaching 7m in height. We did see a few fantastic blows in the bay. The bowheads baleen is the longest of any whale at over 3m and is used to strain tiny prey from the water. The whale’s blubber is the thickest of any animal!
Image From SuperCentenarian.com
The reason for the thickness of the blubber is due to it’s natural habitat of Arctic waters. They are often found close to the edge of the Arctic ice shelf. Now we all complain of the cold in Cornwall, but the waters are definitely not Arctic! Their bow shaped head is used to break through ice up to 60cm thick. Now that’s some ice! Bowheads migrate north and south of the Arctic as the ice retreats and expands. The whales prefer bays, straits and estuaries, and are seldom found far from ice floes. That is why this was truly was a spectacular sight.
Image by Tim Melling http://hww.ca/en/wildlife/mammals/bowhead-whale.html
The Dalmation Pelican was first seen over Gwithian on Saturday, but was mis-identified as a White Pelican. It was correctly identified as Dalmatian Pelican from photographs taken on Sunday (8th) when the bird was seen on the sea off St Ives and later Cape Cornwall and Land’s End. For the last 2 days the bird has been moving between the scattered small pools between Sennen and St Levan. The bird was seen in Poland in early April, then crossed Germany and France before reaching Cornwall. Dalmatian Pelican used to breed in Britain in the Bronze Age and currently breeds from eastern Europe- particularly northern Greece, across the former Soviet Union, through Mongolia into China and south east Asia where it’s populations have declined drastically through persecution by fishermen and habitat loss. The World population is estimated at less than 15,000 birds and, despite conservation measures resulting in increasing or stable populations in eastern Europe and Turkey, the species’ IUCN classification is “Vulnerable”.
