Blackfish, Dorset and a Film update...

Today is a good day for blog writing. Its a great grey day, and the rain beats down on the window. Last nights spectacular sunset over Whipsnade feels like a season away.

Sunset from Whipsnade

As usual, it has taken me an age to get around to another post. Mostly because I have been ridiculously busy, working every spare moment planning and researching, and now filming, for my summer's project.

In the National Marine Aquarium

I finally got around to seeing Blackfish, the 'mesmerizing psychological thriller' about captive orcas, or killer whales, and the difficulty of keeping them in captivity.

Film Poster for Blackfish

If you want to be continually shocked by the same repeated incidents five or six times in 88 minutes then definitely watch it. It is shocking, and I think it is important for everyone to understand the situation. The message is clear, and it is seemingly obvious that orcas most definitely should not be kept in captivity. Each story of an orca turning on a trainer or killing somebody were all as heart wrenching as the other. Despite this, I found that by the end of the film the individual stories had started to lose their impact. You know what's going to happen, and you are already feeling angry and frustrated and the story continues down the same road right until the end. They only briefly touch upon what can be done with the large numbers of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) currently in captivity; I only remember hearing one person mention one sentence on the matter, but I would have liked to see a bit more about the future and what can be done to help them. The entire film is aimed at Sea World, for good reason. But, boycott Sea World? Something needs to be done to evoke change. For me, this should be seen as another important learning curve in keeping animals in captivity. Compare zoo's of today with those of a fifty, even twenty, years ago and you will see a hell of a lot of differences in animal welfare. People pay good money to experience and see animals in captivity, and their funding is vital to enable a lot of the conservation work around the world. Should we demand change? Most definitely. Watch it and let me know what you think! I could talk about it for hours...

                                                                                                                                                                  

On a brighter note, here are some trip photos over the past few months!

A beautifully sunny trip to Dorset for two days with Tim to investigate a few sites and see whether we could find any reptiles went fairly successfully.

St. Oswalds Bay

Sand Lizard

We found two of the six native species of reptile to Britain. We came home having watched the sand and common lizards in the dunes of Studland, leaving the adder, grass snake, slow worm and smooth snake for a future visit. We also enjoyed a blustery walk along Durlston cliffs, where birds zipped and bombed their way along the cliff edges, while rafts of sea birds bobbed on the waters surface. A kestrel perched on a jagged rock. Its partner fed on a vole, tearing into it as waves crashed hundreds of feet below.

Kestrel at Durlston Cliffs

And the ultimate aerial predator, the peregrine falcon, effortlessly sped through the wind, cutting through the air like an arrow as it patrolled the cliffs for potential targets.

Whilst at work, we discovered a little owl nest underneath a bench in a shelter. Three chicks of slightly varying sizes and fluffiness, as the owls incubate from first laying, the chicks hatch at different times, which is thought to enable a greater success rate of fledged chicks.

One of the little owl chicks

                                                                                                                                                                  

Today is baking hot. My face warm and glowing from a day working in the sun. Over the past month I have dedicated my entire free time to planning, producing and filming of this years summer film. The subject of the film is one I am extremely passionate about. Sharks. And it's close to home. Great British Sharks.

Mako jaws in the NMA

The aim of the film is to hopefully show people that not only are there 30+ species of native sharks in British waters, but that it is possible to actually go out, hit the coast and see them in the wild. Without flying to South Africa or California.

My good friend Tim has been unbelievably great help once again. And in the meantime, he has given himself a reputation for regularly falling over when entering and exiting the sea.

Snorkeling at Mousehole with Timmy P !

Part of the film has been filmed in the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. A beautiful aquarium that is definitely worth a visit if you ever find yourself down in the South West. So far, we have carried out a couple of interviews, filmed sharks in the aquarium, and have found a nursery ground for catshark eggcases. Many thanks to David Gibson, Josh McCarty, John Hepburn and Cat Gordon for the help!

I have kept this post short to bring you up to date with Beyond the Riverbank goings on. My next post will be an extra special trip report from Canada, where I will be spending the next two weeks up in The Rockies. I have kept the film progress short, as I will do a mid-film progress report with behind-the-scenes photos of
Tim and I eating ice creams, and the film mascot, Ernie the Owl, meeting new people and seeing new places.

Ernie inspects a shield bug! 

As always, thank you for reading! And please comment and share, as the more people I have following, hopefully the more I can inspire!

Thanks ya'll !

Final Frame

Lightning over Cornwall. What a show! 

A little catch up, waxwing, and why you shouldn't give a damn if you don't see them...

It has been a long time since I last posted a blog, and a lot has happened. Here I will give a quick run down of a few highlights, before I talk about why you should get out and look for waxwing, and not give a damn whether you see them or not...

Back in August, I spent a week in Norfolk; highlights included avocet, bearded tit, osprey and migrating pink-footed geese at dusk… truly phenomenal, and I am not even the biggest goose fan!

Bearded tit

To come back from Norfolk, and to get an extremely grateful tip-off that the local kingfisher chicks had successfully fledged, I couldn’t resist sitting in the nettles for a few days watching them as they went from begging their parents for food, to attempting the odd dive of their own… with limited success!

Three days were spent living on a ship with the ‘twuly incwedible’ naturalist Chris Packham. Three days whale watching as a guide for ORCA, with the odd bit of bird watching thrown in, across the Bay of Biscay. There were fin whales galore, bottlenose dolphins, common and striped dolphins, as well as petrels and shearwaters.

An incredible sun halo, as the light refracted in the ice in the clouds, formed this circular rainbow-like ring around the sun.

Then to Wales with the family, where we were graced by the presence of powerful peregrines, agile choughs, and the cutest of grey seal pups.

Chough

Grey seal pup

I have been absolutely amazed by Wales, particularly Pembrokeshire, not dissimilar to the Devon coastline; the scenery and wildlife were stunning. The next time I was lucky enough to go to Wales was with Sale and Batman, where we wild camped in the New Forest and the Gower. Before being told our car had been clamped, and we had to pay £100 to get it removed. Only to be told it was a joke, but we had to leave anyway… 

Now, winter is here, and if you have any kind of keen interest in birds, you will be well aware of this year’s invasion of waxwing, as they move south from Scandinavia in search of food, their favourites being the bounty of berries on our trees and bushes. It is a particularly exceptional year for spotting these very handsome birds, with waxwing sightings in every county of England.

Everywhere I have been, I have looked for waxwing. There have been numerous local sightings, and yet, I haven’t seen a single one. I spent a whole weekend out walking in the hope of seeing a waxwing. I didn’t, and still haven’t, seen a waxwing. Instead, I had a great weekend walking in the countryside, and couldn’t care less about the waxwing. I walked from Langford to Biggleswade along the River Ivel. Along the way I saw redwing, another winter visitor, similar to the song thrush, except, as the name suggests, with a bright red blotch underneath their wings.

Redwing

A great spotted woodpecker flew across the river, black and white with its little red bum. Great spotted woodpeckers could have one of the greatest skull designs on the planet, with their shock absorbent tissue at the base of their skull enabling them to bang their little peckers at forces over 1,000 times that of gravity. A tiny goldcrest, the UKs smallest bird, with its drab green colouration, and bright golden crest running from front to back like some plump little punk rocker, bounced from branch to branch in the bushes.

Goldcrest

Rachael joined me in Broom lakes, where we wondered for a while, admiring the flock of lapwing, the wonderfully crested birds, with their large deep wings, before we drove around some car parks, staring at the bushes. Not seeing any waxwing.

The lesson to be learned here, is that watching wildlife isn’t about spotting that rare Scandinavian winter visitor, but simply getting out and enjoying each species for what they are, as each one is unique, and each in their own right is special. I would sooner watch the local kestrel hunt from telegraph wires, catching voles in its talons, carrying them off and tearing them apart in the nearby tree tops, than travel to the far end of the country to catch a fleeting glimpse of a little brown bird that was blown over from the US in a freak Atlantic storm, the first recorded in the country for over 25 years; the wildlife equivalent of train spotting. Its also highly likely, that after the exhausting trip across the Atlantic, the little brown bird will die not long after being recorded here.

My advice, go for a stroll on a nice sunny morning (or rainy morning for that matter), see what you can see, and enjoy the cuteness of the goldcrest, the awesomeness of the birds of prey, and everything in between.

Kestrel 

Or, if you are lazy, look out of your window, you could see one of these little cutie pies.

Blue tit

In the Month of May in the Bay...

Rather than bore everyone with the tedious happenings of day-to-day occurrences, I have opted for a less regular blog, where, hopefully, there will be a lot more excitement to report, without people groaning at the sight of yet another failed attempt at a Dolphin photograph… or another wave crashing against the side of the ship!  This way, you get the highlights. All of the good stuff. Without the padded out tales of grumpy passengers, or how I have forgotten my soap bag, so had to go three days without a shower, shave, tooth clean or spray of deodorant. Needless to say, the quilt covers have turned a stale brown/green colour.

So now I am giving you the wildlife highlights of my life, this month’s first photo is of a floating wooden pallet. Great eh?

There are a lot of these floating around, amongst a lot of other pieces of crap. I saw two within an hour of each other. But these can, conversely, in a bizarre twist of fate, provide a unique form of shelter for fish in the open ocean. Young fish will school underneath, Triggerfish will actually make them home, and other larger fish will follow these in search of prey. The innocent floating crate could mean the difference between a Tuna making it from a few centimetre larvae to a full grown two metre long powerhouse of an adult or not (Info straight from the greatest natural history programme ever made – Blue Planet).

A particularly enormous sighting of a Fin Whale, right next to the ship, the closest I have ever sighted one, sparked some excitement amongst the crowds. I say crowds, more like the two people who were hardcore enough to brave the wind and rain! You can see in the next two photos its large body and fin rolling through the water. Pretty much all you get to see of these great leviathans.

The fin Whale was undeniably amazing. But on that very same day, something happened that overshadowed any marine mammal sighting I could have had. Out from the fog laden distance, a bird slowly caught up with the ship, struggling in the wind and rain. A bird of prey. Not any old bird of prey, a Kestrel. I love birds of prey. I especially love Kestrels. Small, agile, finely tuned, perfect predators of small mammals. But this was at sea, probably at least 150 miles from land. Crazy.

Soon the Kestrel tired of keeping up, and decided to kick back on one of the lifeboats on the side of the ship…

Luckily, of all the lifeboats, on all of the places across the entire ship the Kestrel could have landed, it landed on the lifeboat right outside my bedroom window!

Absolutely stunning! I had been spending ages out and about back home tracking these down, and then in the middle of the ocean, one lands outside my bedroom window!!! Phwooaarrr!

After a while Kes took off, leaving me with my ruined undies to retire for the day.

I seem to remember having a stint of fair weather for a few days. Here is a pod of Striped Dolphin, keeping low as they travel through the golden tinted surface of the sea in the early hours of the morning.

Santander is my favourite destination of the week, notable for its rather grand entrance, and wonderful sea front of the city. Here, the incredibly lush and snow-capped mountains in the Pecos National Park back a royal castle on the rocky sea front.

Another reason why I like Santander…  the naked statues of people scattered around the sea front. This particular fellow is diving into the sea. Not sure how well these would go down back home.

Being late spring, and everything on land already blooming, the sea was covered in miles of these giant red slicks across the surface. Plankton blooms. These tiny animals and plants explode into life as the sea begins to warm and they gorge themselves on the nutrient rich waters across the Bay of Biscay, turning the sea a lovely red colour.

The ship sailed into another spectacular sunset as it left Portsmouth. It reminded me of the over-romanticised Brittany Ferries advert on the television.

Another bird joined the ship, this time a lot smaller than the Kestrel, and a lot less likely to pummel a Bank Vole and tear its organs out. A Grey Wagtail, with its bright yellow underside, managed to keep up with the ship travelling at 45kmph. Not bad going for a little fellow, usually seen bobbing around streams and rivers.

I had just put my head down and nodded off for an afternoon kip, when the phone rang. The ship manager, Audrey, seemed a little flustered and wanted me down at reception to help them. When I got there, a Collared Dove was hobbling across the floor, falling around, clearly disabled. It had flown into the ship, and probably trashed part of its spine.

I took it to my room, with my fat face and pale forehead, and found it a box to keep it in until Audrey got off the ship and could take it to the vets. Where I believe they killed it. Should have probably killed it on the ship, saved it a day of pain and suffering, suffering and pain.

The Bay has exploded with the slightly retarded looking Sunfish or Mola Mola, the heaviest bony fish on the planet, growing over two metres from fin to fin, these guys can weigh a couple of tonne. They bask at the surface, where they are thought to be thermally recharging after deep dives in cold water. Sometimes gulls will peck parasites off of their bodies, and females of the species are known for producing more eggs than any other vertebrate on the planet. What is not to like about these insane animals?

Finally some photos of Dolphins where the entire body is visible, and kind of sharp-ish! Here a Common Dolphin and its calf (behind) leap through the water.

Here a Striped Dolphin keeps characteristically low in the water while it travels…

And a young Common Dolphin leaps from the surface !

And a through-water shot from above of a small pod of four…

My food highlight of the month has to be the Cow tongue stew. Really nice, beefy flavour, except with a much tender texture. The skin is the only part that puts you off, being a little rough and whiter in colour.  

This has been quite a long blog this one. So I will blog the adventures back on land in a second part to the month of May. Maybe next week. Probably later.

Hopefully you enjoyed!

Until next time…