Golden tickets to a seabird spectacular

In the current issue of Nature’s Home magazine, Peter Exley tells the story of the fabulous Isles of Scilly Seabird Restoration project. I’ve visited the Isles of Scilly around 10 times since my first visit in October 1996. Then, I was a wide-eyed teenager gawping gleefully at American rarities such as black-and-white warbler, bobolink and black duck and I've been fortunate to see a lot of amazing wildlife there since - from rare lichens and wildflowers to, well, lots more rare birds!

Scilly's seabirds are something that I have not had the pleasure of spending too much time with though. I’ve taken a couple of pelagic trips on the Scillonian sailing from Penzance, way out past the Scillies and into the Atlantic many years ago, but the islands’ attraction to breeding and rare seabirds is legendary. Having seen how good these trips out from the main island of St Mary's are proving to be, I was feeling left out.

For seabird enthusiasts these really are "golden tickets" and yep, they've got my name on them - literally (image cMark Ward)

Shear joy on the Scillies
Scilly Pelagics run boat trips out from St Marys and they have become renowned for producing the best variety of scarce and rare seabirds in the UK – and the best views – so I decided to get in on the action last weekend having booked myself, and my best friend, Ade on a couple of pelagic trips over a long weekend.

The Sapphire, skippered by Joe Pender, about to pick us up at dawn on the quay (image cMark Ward)

We arrived on a lovely sunny St Marys on the Friday and at 5 pm, were on board The Sapphire along with 40 other keen photographers and birders, as well as the world expert seabird gurus who run the trips, including Bob Flood and skipper Joe Pender.

Manx shearwaters have returned to breed on the Scillies thanks to the isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project and we saw hundreds of them on the trip, including rafts of them resting on the sea. Manxies are great but we’d come for the rarities and great shearwaters soon appeared and in big numbers. We saw close to 300 which significantly upped my lifetime number of individuals seen from 5, in the space of a few hours! Cory's and sooty shearwater were on show as well, as was a key target for these trips, the Wilson's storm-petrel which can only be reliably and consistently found in the UK on these trips.

A Scilly Manx shearwater lives up to its name (Ed Marshall - rspb-images.com)

As ever on pelagic trips, it wasn’t all about the birds. A big pod of short-beaked common dolphins accompanied us, leaping out of the water almost within touching distance. Even the most hardened birders on board were looking away from the seabird masses, snapping away at the dolphins and "oohing" and "aahing". Rightly so.

We arrived back in the evening dusk exhilarated by the trip with my head spinning with flocks of shearwaters, dancing storm-petrels and acrobatic dolphins.

Great shearwaters enter UK waters from the South Atlantic in late summer and the south-west is the place to go for sightings (Andy Schofield rspb-images.com)

Back on dry land
We spent the Saturday wandering around the beautiful island of St Mary’s. The wind was strong so we sheltered up on Peninnis Head and watched for passing seabirds with our telescopes. 18 great shearwaters was a good score and our key bird from Nature’s Home, the Manx shearwater was passing by in good numbers too. I searched rockpools and the strandline for coastal creatures and  enjoyed a good show of beadlet anemones in the rockpools of Old Town Beach, stacks of species of seaweed, finding a Scilly shrew (sadly dead), Autumn lady’s tresses orchids on The Garrison and the multitude of scarce native and non-native plants that thrive on the Scillies in its unusual climate.

There's loads of other wildlife on the Isles of Scilly - this is the Scillonian subspecies of speckled wood that looks quite different to mainland versions (image cMark Ward)

Sunday sailing
Sunday morning saw us on a longer pelagic. The wind had calmed now and it was a very pleasant trip out searching for diving gannets that revealed the presence of food - and seabirds. Huge rafts of shearwaters still entertained, with loads more greats, and the Globally-threatened Balearic shearwater gave a good show with four individuals around the boat and plenty of "sooties" again giving stunning views. Lots of European storm-petrels danced past and many followed in the wake of the boat. We picked up the rare Wilson’s storm-petrel once again, the dolphins put in a good show and it was a veyr, very pleasant way to spend a Sunday.

I’ve been on a lot of pelagic trips around the world, but the trips off Scilly are well up there with the best and just five miles or so from land. They are seriously addictive and I could see myself back there next year, and the next…

Even if you can’t make it, make sure you read Peter Exley’s feature on the Scillies and its seabirds in Nature's Home and be transported over the waves and into the world of petrels, shearwaters, dolphins and gannets.It's a great place to be and thanks to your support, our seabirds have some great backing to ensure they're around for everyone to enjoy.