Shark in the Mist

At first when I woke up this morning and looked out of the caravan I thought somehow I'd been transported into purgatory, so thick was the fog cascading in from the sea. When I'd left the moths in my trap at 1am the skies were beautifully clear, the stars twinkling away and not a breath of wind.... but I am in Cornwall.... the weather changes at the drop of a hat and it can be incredibly local. For instance, a few weeks ago at Lands End it was awful, worse than awful.... we could see 5 foot in front of us for the whole day with the thick sea-fog, however, in Penzance - a mere 9 miles away - it was blisteringly hot, blue skies and everyone was enjoying their ice creams.

Brussels Lace (Cleorodes lichenaria)

Although the weather was poor, I felt pretty good about the nights trapping and went out to see what I'd got. After an hour of sorting and identifying the haul, I'd ended up with 277 moths of 66 species including a rather delicate species I'd not had before, Brussels Lace (Cleorodes lichenaria). This species is pretty common in the south-west, but much rarer in other parts of the country. It belongs to the family of 'beautys' but unusually feeds on lichens rather than the foliage of leaves and plants.

the Drinker (Euthrix potatoria)

Plenty of hawk-moths with another 8 Elephants, 2 Poplars and another Privet, 3 species of emerald and a really funky moth called the Drinker. It is called this (supposedly) due to its caterpillar having a liking for drinking droplets of dew.

Going into work was something I wasn't really looking forward too, by the time I was driving in, the fog had thickened further and when I got into the hide the sea was completely obscured by a veil of grey. For the first two hours I didn't talk to a single person, nor had I seen any kind of wildlife to speak of apart from the odd Jackdaw and Herring Gull ghosting out of the fog and over the hide. I decided to take an early lunch which was a great idea as when I came back, the skies cleared just enough to see the sea, and the sight that greeted me was fantastic.... a Basking Shark drifting around in the bay below the hide. It gave me a great opportunity to test my new lens and I'm pretty pleased with it to be honest, even in poor light it was pretty quick and although I had to bump up the ISO on my camera, it's not as grainy as I thought it would be.

Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus)

The Basking Shark is a summer visitor to our shores and a pretty spectacular animal to boot. Measuring up to 30ft (10m) in length the oceanic behemoths cruise across the surface filtering plankton from the water. With a mouth that can be 2m across they can eat a huge amount during the day, filtering so much water through their gills that they could fill an Olympic size swimming pool in just one hour. They start arriving around our shores in mid-May, peaking half way into July and sometimes the numbers can be staggering, up to 60-70 sharks in Sennen Bay alone.

Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis)

Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis)

This year the sharks have been few and far between due to the unsettled weather we've had down here since April, so I took the chance to watch this awesome creature for as long as I could. Even when it disappeared around the corner, with hardly anyone in the hide and those who were wanting to see more of the shark, we left a sign on the hide door, locked up and trooped round the corner to watch it for a while longer. The shark continued to perform well for some time but the Fulmars were trying desperately hard to steal the show, skimming over our heads as the wind howled in, gliding effortlessly as they circled around the cliffs in front of us, a few even coming to land in front of us as if curious to what we were all staring at the sea for.

After the shark and the visitors had gone I had a wander along to cliffs in the hope to see another shark in one of the bays but the weather started to close in. On my way back to the car I decided to sit down next to a rock and have a quick scan around when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a flicker of movement on the other side of the rock next to me.... with my camera poised I gradually edged round the rock until filling the frame of the camera was the head of a Kestrel looking the opposite direction to me. I managed to creep around just enough to fire off a shot, but the Kessie heard the click, and dove off the rock and out of sight. A great end to a surprising day!

Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus)