Travelling may be something that we consider a luxury and something we save up all year to do, but for some marine species travelling isn’t just something they do for fun but actually a necessity. Just like the Wildebeest migrating across the Serengeti certain marine species make enormous journeys across the oceans.
You can go your own way!
“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Puffins photographed at the Farne Islands by Alisha Slater (@x_alisha.slater_x).
This even applies to species that we can find right here in Northumberland. Puffins (Fratercula) for example, migrate to the Farne Islands and Coquet Island to breed in spring before dispersing out to the open North Atlantic and North Sea for the winter. Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea), also known as the ‘Swallow of the Sea’, migrate up to 60,000 miles annually from their breeding grounds on the Farne Islands to Antarctica. They arrive to breed in May and depart in early autumn.
Dolphins photographed at the Farne Islands by Fran Gilmore (@franlgilmore).
Minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), White-Beaked Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris), and Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are seasonal visitors to North Sea waters. They migrate along the coast following prey species. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have been recorded passing through North Sea waters, occasionally being spotted near Blyth and the Farne Islands. Orcas (Orcinus orca) were once considered incredibly rare in Northumberland waters, but have been spotted more and more frequently during Spring, most likely following seals, fish and seabird movements.
Migratory fish include European Eels (Anguilla anguilla), Atlantic Mackerel (Scomber scombrus), Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) and Sea Trout (Salmo trutta trutta). European Eels spend their adult lives in European rivers before migrating thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Atlantic Mackerel are highly migratory shoaling fish that move inshore to shallow North Sea waters during the summer to feed in zooplankton and sandeels, migrating further offshore in the autumn. Both Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout are anadromous species, they are born in local rivers (such as the River Coquet and the River Tweed), then migrate to the ocean to mature, and then return upstream to spawn.
The journeys these incredible creatures undertake can be long and gruelling, and even potentially very dangerous, but that doesn’t stop them from travelling year in and year out. The trek may be arduous, but the reward can be epic!
We might think that our seas are full of lowly, stationary creatures like Sea Anemones and Limpets, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Nearly every sea and ocean have creatures that migrate and have the need to travel. For example, certain sea turtle species actually return to the beach they were born on to lay their own eggs, and this could be a journey of hundreds and thousands of miles, all to get back to a specific location!
Some species are so regular with their migration that wildlife experts can actually predict when they will return to an area.
How fun to think that a Dolphin or Tern that you saw one year might be the same that you encounter years later!