Hummingbirds in flight

One of my favourite images from this year. It is a hummingbird about to arrive on a flower. They are very quick birds, zipping around so fast they are virtually impossible to capture in a photograph. The hummingbird society says of them "On the one hand, hummingbirds appear tiny and delicate: the average hummer weights only about 1/10 ounce (3-4 grams). Yet they are hardy and resilient: some species annually migrate as much as 3,000 miles each way." Want to join us to photograph hummingbirds in the wild? Look here.

Dive with Basking Sharks in the UK

We are having a good amount of interest in our basking shark trips for 2012. If you are interested, we have now extended the window of available trips between June and the end of August. This has come about from us lessening our work load on long haul projects and a preference for concentrating on European or UK destinations. Our basking shark trips are snorkel or freediving based although over the last year we have confirmed some excellent interaction with the local seal population and now offer scuba diving or freediving with these seals in crystal clear water as part of our itinerary. The location also has excellent macro opportunities with good populations of nudibranchs and other macro life.

Great Article about Great White Sharks

One of the greatest threats posing declining great white sharks is the threat from shark nets, used for bather protection. Every time there is a death from a great white attack, the issue comes to the fore within the affected communities, and around the world. This article by Chistopher Neff highlights the issues.

Blue Shark Diving in the Azores

Here are a handful of images from our trip to the Azores back in August. As expected, the Azores is a place of enormous potential for European divers as well as those from further afield. Although it has to be said that diving is still in its infancy in the region and operators should be chosen with care.

The Azores is a place that is bound to start growing in the diving community's imagination, with ample macro life and a whole host of pelagic species, not to mention one of the best places in the world for cetacean watching, and with the right paperwork - filming and photography of those cetaceans beyond compare.

The sharks diving on our trip was very nice indeed, with enough shark action to keep us busy for the entirety of the dive time. Blue sharks are bold, and come very close, checking out dome ports with regularity. Mako sharks are also to be seen, although this is still a part of the trip that remains a good chance rather than a guarantee.

If you are interested in joining us for a trip in 2012, please visit our travel site here.

Who? Pew? Barney, McGrew!!

Not Trumpton, but conservation. Who are the Pew Environment Group?

Whoever they are, the Pew Environment Group has once again (They were key to the success of the Palau Shark Sanctuary Too) been the prime mover in shark conservation having been the driving force behind the new declaration that the Marhsall Islands have created the world's biggest shark sanctuary covering over 750,000 Sq Miles. You can read the news as reported by the BBC here.

In contrast to WWF who have nearly three quarters of a million likes on facebook, Pew has only 98. They need more recognition for their work. 

Speaks for itself...my volunteers at work...

Paradise Lost?

We have drawn another manta season in Ecuador to a close. This year proved to be another incredible migration event, albeit after a late start, and whatever we lacked in action in July, the mantas certainly made up for it in huge numbers later on in the season. My team collected over 100 ID's in just two days in early august and the action did not slacken off at as the month wore on. The incredible experiences we had however were not without concern. We noted at high number of mantas with fishing gear trailing all over them and much of the gear had been stuck on the mantas for a long time. Some of the lengths of mono filament or braided lines were embedded deep into the flesh of the mantas and barnacles grew heavily on some of the trailing lengths. It is difficult to judge how much this affects the mantas, but it is bound to affect some of their ability to feed, to migrate, to reproduce. At the very worst, some of these injuries could be killing mantas as they get tangled up and eventually drown. Isla de la Plata is just one place along the Ecuadorean coast where this mass migration of mantas can be found. However it is the best place to see them as there is a distinct lack of diving services along the entire coast of this small country. As we get to know more of the people in the area, it becomes apparent that even with this spectacular event, Isla de la Plata is only a shadow of its former self. One elderly resident of the area recalls twenty years ago when shoals of hammerheads and other sharks could be seen along the reef systems that hug the edge of this deep water island. With our studies into this population revealing that they might well migrate into waters where there is a directed fishery for them, coupled with the damage caused by indiscriminate fishing methods, the question has to be: How long will it be before this population dwindles? Will the biggest aggregation of Manta birostris known, become a victim of fishing practices before it has a chance to be properly saved, like the hammerheads that have disappeared from the area years before?