Little birds and big fish

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

We have a hitch-hiker on board: a small bird, which - from my frantic bird handbook thumbing - appears to be a juvenile stonechat or whinchat. Anyway, everyone's happy to have the tiny stowaway with us for a while although it may leave us when we get closer to land. For now, however, it's proving to be camera-shy and getting fed on breadcrumbs.

And if that's not enough nature news, we just had a close encounter with a shark too! A basking shark passed by the Arctic Sunrise this afternoon just as we were retrieving one of our RIBs (rigid inflatable boat) from the water, after taking our campaign briefing to some fishing boats. For those of you who don't know, basking sharks are the second biggest fish on earth, they can grow to about 11m long, although this one looked like it was quite a bit smaller. They're totally harmless though, unless you're plankton.

Just like most of the big whales, they only eat tiny food, sifting the warm, sun-lit surface water for plankton which is why it looks like they're basking. Apparently they're getting more common in UK (and especially Scottish) waters, but I hadn't expected to see one 60 degrees north, near Unst.

As well as the oceanic bird life I've blogged about repeatedly, I've also seen a minke whale on this trip. It's the whale you’re most likely to encounter in the North Sea, and this one was close to the stern of the ship as we left Fetlar in stormy seas. As I tried to keep my footing on the helideck, I saw the back of the whale rise a few times through the waves, then it dived to the depths again.

The seas around the UK are often overlooked for wildlife, with the assumption that you need to go somewhere more tropical. Yet the waters in our backyard are hugely rich in biodiversity, a fact we need to recognise and protect.

It's a complicated business, too. Sandeel aren't just important for their own sake - puffins, terns, cod and haddock eat them too. Haddock aren't just important for haddock's sake, nor even for fish suppers, as they make up a staple ingredient in the diet of gannets (we've had many fly over the ship with a fish in their beak), great northern divers and cod. And when you put a trawl net in this sea, you always fish more than one species so the intricate balance of that ecosystem must be taken into account when it's being plundered.

It's called the ecosystem approach, and it's been long-ignored by politicians making deals on fishing quotas. Needless to say, a crucial part of this approach is setting areas off-limits to destructive activities too!