Reports of marine wildlife from all around the British Isles, with pollution incidents and conservation initiatives as they affect the flora and fauna of the NE Atlantic Ocean

23 - 25 September 2012

Storms, gales and torrential rain occurred over most of the British Isles. In this study Aberdeen beach, north-east Scotland, was covered by so much foam churned up by the sea that it looked like snow. 

14 September 2012

Another baleen whale was washed up dead on a beach on the east coast of Scotland. This time it was a large 13 metre long Sei Whale, Balaenoptera borealis, discovered on the sandy beach at Elliot, Arbroath, around 8.30 am.

7 September 2012
Portuguese Man-o'-War, Physalia physalis, were being washed onto beaches and shallow waters on the Cornish coasts and a few bathers experienced stings from the venomous tentacles. 

6 September 2012
As the sun rose above the ocean on the edge of the continental shelf off south-west Ireland (on the Porcupine Bight, west of Dursey Island in County Cork), the team on the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group's new marine research vessel Celtic Mist were greeted by several Fin Whales, Balaenoptera physalus, and shortly afterwards had the amazing opportunity to witness two Blue Whales, Balaenoptera musculus, surface within 500 metres of the boat. This is only the third discovery of Blue Whales off Ireland on a week long trip in which eleven cetacean species were recorded. 

2 September 2012
An extremely unusual of an angling capture of a Long-billed (Atlantic) Spearfish, Tetrapturus pfleuger, off a beach known as the Knap, Barry Island, south Wales, was the first known record of this tropical pelagic fish in British seas. 

"This fish was caught around 1 hour 45 minutes after high water, The fish was very clean an lively an even had a sticky fish stuck to it. It was then put back alive but wasn't very strong so I got in the sea to help it out. It the swam off alive, minus the sucker fish which I lost."

One of the surviving Pilot Whales subsequently died but the other survivors joined the rest of the pod and were seen further up the Firth of Forth possibly feeding on shoals of squid reported in the area. 

On 9 September 2012 a Pilot Whale calf was washed up dead. This calf may have been dependent on its mother who became beached and died.

24 August 2012
An exceptionally large 7 kg (15 lb 4 oz) European Lobster, Homarus gammarus, was found by divers, Mark Corp and Mark Reed, and donated to the Blue Reef Aquarium at Portsmouth. It appears to be the largest and heaviest Lobster caught off the British coast since 1931. 

7 August 2012
A most extraordinary encounter occurred between a 10 metre long juvenile Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaengliae, and a fishing vessel of a similar length out of Whitby, Yorkshire.
"The whale suddenly appeared and started rubbing against the boat, swimming under and around us and then rubbing its belly on the boat. It stayed for about 20 minutes, and when we had to move on it went over to the Mistress which was fishing about half a mile away. They radioed to say it was doing exactly the same to their boat,” said Sea Otter 2 skipper Paul Kilpatrick.
"It sounds as though it was trying to bond. Rubbing its belly on the boat mimics suckling behaviour of a calf towards its mother,” said Robin Petch of the Sea Watch Foundation.  “I have grave worries for this youngster. My hope is that it has been reunited with its mother, but if it has become lost, or the mother has perished, it would be very unlikely to survive for very long.”
The knobby head and long pale flippers identified this cetacean as the Humpback Whale rather than the Minke Whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, of which the fishermen were familiar with in the North Sea.

FORUM NEWS

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean Mailing Groups

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean 
Yahoo Group
New Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Glaucus

British Marine Life Study Society
facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/glaucus/

This Wall is now working properly and members can now post on it. This is designed for quick less important chatty news items. Photographs can be uploaded quickly which is only possible on the Yahoo Group by going to the web page. 

Images can be uploaded to flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/glaucus/

Wet Thumb (Marine Aquariology) Forum Link
 
 
 

Lots of marine wildlife reports from Shetland on facebook Photographs include undersea, sea mammals and birds.  Click on the image to connect

Basking Shark	Ocean Sunfish

Photographers submitting pictures should indicate if they wish them to be considered for inclusion as confirming permission takes work and time and can delay publication of the news bulletins. 
 

Click on the album for more links (On-line link)

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This is a book about an ocean that vanished six million years ago: the ocean of Tethys, named after a Greek sea nymph.  The oceans are important to climate and environment, and therefore to life on Earth. The story of Tethys is also a story of extinctions, and floods, and extraordinary episodes such as the virtual drying up of the Mediterranean, before being filled again by a dramatic cascade of water over the straits of Gibraltar. 

Dorrik Stow
300 pages, 15 b/w illustrations and maps.
Oxford University Press
ISBN-13: 9780199214297
 
 

by Paul Kay & Frances Dipper 
£19.95 incl. p&p
Soft cover

With 256 pages and numerous photographs supported by drawings, this book is the most comprehensive photographic guide to marine fish currently available in the UK. Published for the Marine Conservation Society with support from the Countryside Council for Wales. 

Click on the image to order this book through the Marine Conservation Society

RECOMMENDED PURCHASE *****

July 2010

PS: A second revised edition of the book has been published. 

SEASHORE SAFARIS
 
 
 

Publisher: Graffeg
Publisher's Review (click on this text)
Review by the City and County of Swansea

This is the book I should have written (and I dare say a few others as well) and is a much needed introduction to the world of the seashore and the hobby of rockpooling. It is a photographic guide to most of the common species encountered which is much appreciated as newcomers and even experienced rockpoolers will try and match up what they have seen to a visual image (and photographs work better than line drawings) and this will usually get them the correct species, (unless there are two very alike species and then you will need a specialist identification guide like the Collins Guide to the Seashore).

However, the seashore is a rich and interesting habitat with a myriad of species and 225 pages of this large pocket guide are comprehensively covered to suit the enthusiast.

Extract from the foreword by Keith Hiscock:
"Being able to names to what you see and, better still, to use your observations to add to our knowledge about the natural world is what this book is about."

But the book for a popular audience is more than this. It starts from the assumption that the parents and teachers and older children are unfamiliar with the seashore environment.

RECOMMENDED PURCHASE *****

Not just a cookery book: you have to go down to the shore and catch or collect the food yourself. The 240 page hardback book (with an index) is exceptionally well produced in quality of the binding, paper as well as the quality of writing, information and clear useful colour photographs. It is well organised into nine chapters:
 
 

Sharks in British Seas Richard Peirce 138 pages, colour illustrations, line drawings, colour & b/w photos. Lots of newspaper reports. Publisher:  Shark Cornwall Softcover | 2008 | £9.99 ISBN: 978-0-955869402

Seashore by Lucy Beckett-Bowman Consultant: Andy Horton Usborne Publishing   £3.99 Usborne Beginners Series Level One (very young children) ISBN 978-0-7460-8864-7 BMLSS Notes for a Primary School Teacher

Whales & Dolphins
of the European Atlantic
The Bay of Biscay, English Channel, Celtic Sea and coastal SW Ireland
by Dylan Walker and Graeme Cresswell
with the illustrations by Robert Still
WILDGuides  2008
£ 12.00 (includes standard UK P&P)
ISBN:  978-1-903657-31-7

This is the second fully revised and updated edition of this comprehensive guide to the identification of whales, dolphins and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) in the European Atlantic. Until very recently, most researchers and whale-watchers were unaware of the great variety of cetaceans that can be seen so close to the shores of western Europe. Indeed, it is only during the last decade, when detailed cetacean surveys have been carried out in earnest, that we have discovered how important this area is for cetacean biodiversity.

This field guide describes all of the 31 species of whale, dolphin and porpoise that have occurred in the European Atlantic.
 

BMLSS Cetacean Book Reviews

 
 
 

Seashore (Collins New Naturalist) (Paperback) by Peter Hayward Collins 2004 ISBN:  0-00-220031-7 Amazon Web Site

Paperback. Pp 288. Colour & b/w photographs, illustrations, charts, maps and bibliography. Fine copy. "New Naturalist" Seashore is a comprehensive, authoritative account of the natural history of the seashore.
 

BMLSS General Guides
BMLSS Advanced Guides