Scilly Pelagics

Great Shearwater. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

European Storm-petrel. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

I have been visiting the Isles of Scilly for the past 40 years and it’s a birding location that gets under your skin somehow. The rarity season is late autumn but it is the summer months and early autumn that are most alluring for me as a photographer; it is then that the islands boast some of the best opportunities in the UK to watch and photograph seabirds. Using the seaworthy vessel MV Sapphire, skipper and photographer Joe Pender and seasoned seabirder Bob Flood help visitors to get up close and personal with a range of mouth-watering birds, not to mention cetaceans and other marine life. You will need luck with the weather – the skies are often overcast – and good sea legs because the waters around the Isles of Scilly are sometimes rough. But the rewards can be outstanding. For more information visit https://www.scillypelagics.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/sapphire.boating

Cory’s Shearwater. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd