14 July - Monday

After a slow start for us while various water and mud samples were collected in the morning, we finally got started with stationary counts on the slope of Jones Bank again. This time we are doing the counts during a neap tide, when tides are not strong enough to set off the "internal waves" in the thermocline.

We find ourselves in a gannet desert. Occasionally, the odd bird does something interesting, like start to feed or at least start to search for food, but there are a lot of birds not doing very much. Occasionally, we see the odd storm-petrel (but not many), and certainly no sniff of any Cory's shearwaters this time. We have seen quite a few sunfish, now that the wind has eased off a bit. I tried to get a photo of two that passed close to the ship, but didn't have my digiscoping kit with me. I thought I'd got something by holding my camera to my binoculars, but have since seen Clare's shots, and feel too embarrased to put mine on this blog, knowing that her photos are just one click away.

Instead, I'm going to include a lovely photo of a kestrel that Pat sent me (thanks Pat!). She too the photo during an uplifting day near Whitley Bay at the weekend.