Thursday 23 February 2012

Cornish detour

Late in the evening we arrived to the site South-east of Falmouth, where the sea was thankfully calmer. This site has been recommended as an MCZ for subtidal coarse sediment and subtidal sand (see Finding Sanctuary's Final Report).

We've started our shift doing video camera tows to find out more about the sediment and select the stations where we could collect grab samples of sediment.

Early in the morning we were joined once again by a pod of 15 to 20 common dolphins, which swam alongside the ship for a while.

On the videos we've taken today we've seen quite a few exciting marine animals, including several lesser spotted dogfish, Atlantic mackerel, Atlantic horse mackerel, smelt, dragonet, thick back sole, monkfish, gurnard, and an octopus! You can see a short video of the octopus below. Enjoy!

Atlantic mackerel (in blue), Scomber scombrus, amongst other fish (Atlantic horse mackerel and smelt)


Octopus from JNCC on Vimeo.