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The first Basking Shark sighting for the year
was a very small one. It was seen by divers close inshore off
Porthkerris, east of The Lizard, on 10th April. The divers
reported it as being just over a metre long, but I think it was
probably longer than that, for normally Basking Sharks are about
150 to 180 cm at birth, (that’s about 5 to 6 ft), after a
gestation of perhaps as long as 3˝ years, but whatever the
length it was a very young one indeed, and the smallest on our
 records. I find that observers often under estimate the size of
creatures they have seen in the sea.
John
Lambourne who is rebuilding the Cornish Lugger called “Ripple”,
that was originally built in St Ives, launched the craft in
October last year. It has not been
to sea yet, but
has been moored in Newlyn Harbour while he is working on the
inside fittings. Late April he put it up on the slip in the
south west corner of the
harbour to scrape the bottom, for it had accumulated quite an
array of weeds
and
creatures while in the harbour. On the sunnier side it
became covered in a
carpet of fine seaweeds
probably,
Scytosiphon lomentaria,
whilst the other side was covered mainly in Anthozoa, Sea
Anemones, and Ascidiacea, Sea Squirts, including little patches
of
Botryllus schlosseri.
These little
patches of tiny sea squirts were among the Sea Anemones but
mainly higher on the
 hull. Also near the bow there
was quite a collection of the Kelp
Laminaria saccharina, sometimes
called Sea Belt, Sugar Kelp or
Poor-man’s
Weather Glass, up to a
metre long.
Bottlenose Dolphins were reported 8 times
during April, all between St Ives and Falmouth. There were also
5 reports of unidentified dolphins, 3 of which were probably
also
Bottlenose Dolphins, the other two reports were probably
Common Dolphins of which there were also 8 reports. These were
all on the south coast from Porthgwarra to The Dodman. The
largest pod was of 50 or more seen ESE of St. Anthony Head near
Falmouth.
There were 7 reports of Harbour Porpoises,
one report was of a single of Nare Head all the rest were off
Porthgwarra and Gwennap Head. Grey Seals were the greatest
number of reports, 11 in total, mostly of one or two animals but
one report was of about 60 seen in the Godrevy area. There was
also the Basking Shark mentioned earlier in this report.
Up to the end of March there were 30 cetacean
carcasses found on the beaches of Cornwall and the Isles of
Scilly this year. 15 of these were Harbour Porpoises, 12 Common
Dolphins, one a Striped Dolphin, a Pilot Whale and a Fin Whale.
There were also 14 Grey Seals, including 3 pups, 2 Trigger Fish
and a Guillemot. |
