Balearic Shearwaters and Common Dolphins

We’re out on a wildlife cruise from Brixham, guided by Mike Langman and skippered by Dave Saunders on board the Kelly’s Hero. We’re on the lookout for pelagic birds and cetaceans, and we’re in luck. I’ve never seen a Balearic Shearwater before. They are brown above and dirty white below and fly with stiff wings using rapid, shallow wingbeats. I love their long beaks.

Their scientific name is Puffinus mauretanicus. The species is considered critically endangered with extinction by the IUCN. There are only a few thousand left and their breeding habitat is being destroyed by holiday homes, light pollution and the introduction of cats and rats to the Balearic Islands, which are in the Mediterranean, east of Spain.

I now want to go on another cruise and get more photographs of them. I feel like I’m bringing the death-throes of the natural world to you.

We also have the thrill of Common Dolphins playing around the boat. This one was determined to jump and slap its head as hard as possible on the sea’s surface.

It’s such an alien world they inhabit.

Maybe they think that of us, too.