Sunday 19 October 2014

Freshwater West

A family walk along a bracing, windswept, Freshwater West beach yesterday was made "interesting" if a little sad with many large washed up large jelly fish,  3 (quite old) seal pup carcases high up on the back of the beach and this dead juvenile Gannet. As you can see it was well tangled up in fishing gear and it had deep cuts on both legs where the rope had dug in. Whether it had struggled into the sea from Grassholm with the rope tangled around it or become tangled once at sea is impossible to tell. Such a shame that the fantastic amount of effort put in by it's parents should come to such an early (avoidable) end. No doubt this is just one of dozens of Gannet carcases around our coast line.

See the Ramsey blog here for an article on Grassholm Gannets and fishing gear which will also feature in the forthcoming Autumn Watch on the BBC at the end of the month