Today, Brian remains in 11th position, averaging a speed of 13 knots, as he prepares for the next weather front and the fleet continues to towards the longitude of Western Australia.

Below is an update from Debbie Winton at Earthwatch – the leading international environmental charity and partner to Bahrain Team Pindar, who has been monitoring the wildlife Brian has encountered. Sightings include the Arctic Tern, the bird featured on the Pindar logo.

Sightings Brian has blogged so far (as of 10th December 2008):
•    2 dolphins
•    Whales
      -    group of three pilot whales and pod of 30
      -    2 unidentified whales
•    Numerous storm petrels
•    4 black petrels (unidentified)
•    6 unidentified snow white birds (possibly egrets?)
•    1 gannet
•    2 Arctic terns
•    2 albatross
•    Prions
•    Shoal of garfish
•    Numerous flying fish

We will start with cetaceans (whales and dolphins), and the unusual behaviour that Brian described of a bow-riding pilot whale in November.  This was most likely a long-finned pilot whale as it was spotted off of the west coast of Spain, well within their North Atlantic range.  Bow-riding is playful behaviour best known in dolphins and surprisingly, the long-finned pilot whale is actually a dolphin, not a whale.  However, they are not known to bow-ride often, but are very active, often seen slapping their fluke (tail) on the surface (lob tailing) and spy hopping (raising their head vertically out of the water to look at the surroundings).  It is difficult to identify the pod of pilot whales that Brian saw more recently, as he was in an area where the ranges of the two species overlap, but if he managed to get a photo, we might be able to!

Moving on to seabirds, and starting with the storm petrels.  These will be on their yearly migration to waters off South Africa to find rich fishing grounds of fish, plankton and crustaceans (shrimp).  There are 22 species of storm petrel and many can be difficult to tell apart, so identifying them is very difficult at sea.

The 6 snow white birds that joined him on 19 Nov pose an interesting question, as Brian was fairly sure they were not tropic birds, which are the most common birds of this description found in the open Atlantic.  His suggestion was that maybe they were white egrets, further from home than usual.  Looking at the tail, Brian is convinced of this, which leaves it to Earthwatch to find out why they would be there!  Watch this space…

 








Red-tailed Tropic Bird (Wikipedia)










Great white egret (Wikipedia)

After writing to Brian about the gannet he described in his blog on Nov 24 which had bright red feet, we have identified it as a red-footed booby, a species which lives year-round in tropical and subtropical regions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.  Of all species of booby, which belong to the gannet family, the red-footed is the smallest, but can still dive down to 30m to catch prey.










Red-footed booby (Wikipedia)

Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) have made a couple of appearances near Brian’s boat over the last month.  These birds make the longest migration known for any animal, from breeding grounds in the Arctic and temperate northern hemisphere, to the oceans of Antarctica and back each year, a return journey of about 24,000 miles.  Brian also identified Prions last  week, but as he said, the six species are very difficult to distinguish from each other.  They are small petrels, less than 30cm long, only found in the Southern Ocean, and they breed on subantarctic islands.  Prions are monogamous, and a bird will locate its nest by following its partner’s distinctive smell.













Arctic tern (Wikipedia)

Last but not least for the birds, Brian has been very lucky to see two albatross since entering cooler southern waters.  The actual number of albatross species is highly disputed, but of the 22 species on the IUCN Red List, eighteen are at risk of extinction (1).  Among other threats, they suffer heavily from being caught as by-catch, in long-line fisheries.  A recent news story by IUCN highlights this problem, and the results of a recent trial of new fishing techniques aimed at reducing it.

And finally we move on to the fish.  In case you were wondering what a garfish looks like (seen on Brian’s first day at sea), they are long and thin, with a long pointed beak-like nose, a feature of the needlefish family.







Garfish (Wikipedia)

Brian has also seen some shoals of the infamous and beautiful, flying fish.  These use their wing-like fins to glide for 30-50m over the surface of the water, or sometimes even further.  This unique ability is a mechanism to escape from predators.  They manage to fly by swimming rapidly just under the surface of the water and spreading their fins as they leave the water.  They then use their modified tail fin to propel themselves forward on the surface when the rest of the body is out of the water, eventually becoming fully airborne.  They can even flap their “wings” in flight.  See this news story from the BBC for a video of one of the longest ever recorded flights of a flying fish.

Thank you Brian for all your wildlife stories so far, and we look forward to hearing more!

¹ Classified as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically endangered

Information and facts from the National Geographic, RSPB, IUCN Red List, ARKive and Ocean Wanderers websites were used to write this blog.