Common Dolphin (Delphinus delphis)
These dolphins live in pods of between 50 and 100 individuals. They inhabit the deep offshore waters off our coastline and, lucky for us, off Padstow. They are very sociable creatures, enjoying bow riding and interacting with boats.
How to identify Common Dolphins:
- • They have attractive wavy marks along their sides of yellow, brown or gray, often described as an hourglass pattern
• 1.5- 2.5 metres in length
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Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
We have a resident pod of this species in Cornwall. There are about 10 of them and they inhabit the sheltered inshore waters along the coastline.
How to identify this species:
- • 2.5- 3.5 metres in length
- • Mostly dark gray above and lighter gray or white belly
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Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
This is one of the smallest mammals living in the sea. We have a resident pod on the south coast of Cornwall of between 8 and 10 individuals (they're a bit difficult to count!) They are quite hard to spot due to the small size of their dorsal fin so we tend to see them on relatively calm days. They are generally shy and don't interact with the boat as much as the dolphins might do.
How to identify a Harbour Porpoise:
- • Only 1.3 - 1.8 metres in length
- • Gray / dark brown coloured above, paler belly
- • Often makes a 'puffing' noise when at the surface breathing through its blowhole
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Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus)
Distribution:
In the summer time we have a lot of sightings of these creatures. They are easily spotted throughout the summer months as they feed close to the UK coast and close to the surface of the water. They are found in all the seas around the UK. Little is known about them in the winter, but as there aren't many (or any) sightings it has been suggested that they migrate offshore and to deeper water.
Identification:
- These creatures can grow to be almost the same size as a double decker bus- that's 15 metres long!
- The large dorsal fin is easy to spot from a boat or the cliff top. On larger animals we often see it flopping to one side as the fin is too heavy to support itself upright out of the water.
- Quite often the tail fin is seen above the water and the tip of the nose if it is feeding.
Feeding:
As the sea begins to warm up in May, the plankton blooms and this attracts the basking sharks. We see the plankton blooms from the boat, usually along tide lines where there are tiny bubbles on the surface. We hunt out these tide lines as they are often where the basking sharks are feeding. The sharks have 5 long gill slits on each side of their bodies and they have rakers, which sieve out the plankton from the sea water passing through them. The big sharks can filter the amount of water in an Olympic sized swimming pool in 1 hour!
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Gray Seal (Halichoerus grypus)
Seals are the most common mammal we spot on our sea safaris.
Distribution:
They are found on coasts on both sides of the north Atlantic ocean, as such they are often referred to as the Atlantic gray seal. We are lucky enough to have half of the world population living around the British Isles. They are found in groups all around the Cornish coast. We have around 8-15 seals that we see regularly.
Feeding:
When the tide is high, we see the seals feeding close to the shore. They catch a mixture of fish, including sand eels and crabs. Seals don't need to feed every day and they fast during the breeding season. They rest and relax when it's low tide and that's when we see them hauled out on the rocks.
Reproduction:
The breeding season in the UK is between September and December. Females use the caves around our coast to give birth. She will only stay with her pup for the first 3 weeks of its life, feeding it on rich fatty milk. Then she leaves the pup to fend for itself and will go on to breed again. The pup's amazing instinct forces it to start hunting. It soon looses its white coat and gains its spotty one.
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Birds
We are lucky to have a rich variety of habitats on our doorstop, attracting many different species of birds, both as residents and migrants passing through. Rugged cliffs, muddy creeks, salt-marsh, sandy and rocky shores, sheltered coves and freshwater means a wide range of species can be seen on our trips:
• Cormorants • Puffins • Oyster catchers • Sea Gulls • Gannet • Fulmar • Peregrine Falcon • Guillemot
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Other wildlife
At different times of the year we can find other species of wildlife on our sea safaris such as the strange looking Sunfish, a disc shaped fish that can grow up to 2 metres in diameter and can sometimes be seen floating flat on the sea surface.
Jellyfish are quite often seen in the summer months and sometimes the sea can be littered with Cuttlefish bones during their spawning season.
We never quite know what me might find as sea temperatures change more and more unusual species are being found around our Cornish Shores
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