I didn't get around to posting last night as we lost 1.5 hours due to a time zone change. Yesterday morning was bright with good visibility despite the frequent snow showers. We had made excellent progress the previous night so our first day of survey was over the abyssal plain (unfortunately we steamed over the Grand Banks and shelf break at night). There were no cetacean sightings all day, however the bird activity was high with many species recorded by Emily - fulmar, kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, glaucous gull, herring gull, dovekie (little auk), thick-billed murre (Brunnich's guillemot) and great skua. There were a few dark phase fulmars wheeling around the ship too, amazing birds which look striking against the snow clouds given their all-dark underbelly.
The hydrophone didn't detect any cetaceans yesterday, however as I type there is a sperm whale clicking away mad. We are currently in 4000m of water and making 10 knots in a following sea making nice quiet conditions for the hydrophone.
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| Dark Phase Fulmar, Conor Ryan |
We'll report back again this evening.
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