Summer has finally settled into it’s normal pattern, thank goodness, not only can we see it in the grass verges along the road side and in the hedges, fields and woodlands but out at sea as well. Sean’s first phone call was to tell me about the Minke Whales Balaenoptera acutorostrata that he and today’s fishing party are watching.
Minke Whales travel great distances from their breeding & calving grounds in the tropics to their feeding grounds towards the polar regions. While these whales can be found offshore their summer feeding grounds are mainly in coastal and inshore areas, today been a prime example, just over a mile from Staithes Harbour one fully grown and two juvenile Minke Whales are feeding off the shoals of mackerel that have finally arrived here is this tiny corner of the North Sea. While the video below has not been taken in the North Sea but somewhere off Australia, it still is worth watching.
But Minke Whales are not all that’s been sighted this morning, Sean’s second phone call was to report that the number of birds spotted has been huge…!
Common Terns, Little Terns, Red-throated Divers, Manx Shearwaters, Common Scoters, Puffins, Razorbills and Gannets. Some of these birds are simply flying by while others are feeding close inshore on sand eels.
So lots of activity out at sea this morning not sure how much fishing, aboard ‘All My Sons’, is taking place though…! The final phone call was to report that porpoises have been sighted too.
