Natural Selection

Today began not far into the journey south along the edge of the Bay of Biscay. Even though we weren’t in the bay proper things felt a bit quiet birdwise at breakfast, with the odd Gannet but nothing else.

I had a spin class booked and was a bit concerned what I might be missing out on as we neared the more prolific areas where the sea depths increase. I needn’t have worried to some extent as I could watch the sea from my spin bike, a step up from my normal distraction of reading kindle books on my phone. The boat was listing a bit which made it a more authentic cycling experience than your average fixed bike ride.

When I did start watching the sea in earnest it was clearly a bit too choppy for picking out whales and dolphins. There weren’t too many birds either. Over three hours I did get a handful of Gannets, Cory’s and Balearic Shearwaters and a second winter Mediterranean Gull. A Woodpigeon barrelled over the boat, a reminder that passerines can be migrating over open sea at this time.

The weather conveniently closed in during the time Jane and I had earmarked for table tennis and air hockey. When I had a second watch later on it was clearly considerably calmer. Gannets and Cory’s were moving in greater numbers but still a trickle, then the anticipated moment as a small whale blow appeared close to the boat. I had a brief view of a second animal which suggested as the blow had that it was a Minke, I pointed the camera and hoped for the best and got lucky.

There was time for a couple more interesting sightings. A Common Scoter flew over the boat and then didn’t know quite where to go. In a similar vein, and many miles from land, a Kestrel did a u-turn when it reached the end of the ship and may have actually sought refuge somewhere on the top decks closed to passengers.

I’ve done a lot of Biscay surveys for Marinelife over the years, and whilst this wasn’t up there with the best of them it was an enjoyable day all told.