Adam Powell and Paul Moulton from ITV joined us to make a film about Manx Basking Shark Watch.

This news piece about our basking shark tagging and underwater camera work should be screened on Border TV (channel 103 on Sky) some time in the week 11th-17th August.

We have a French Crew here making a very special wildlife film about basking sharks.

hey are making a marine wildlife documentary that has been 5 years in the making. They are going out with Mal Kelly in his boat Foillan Beg.
Previous stunning works have included "Le Peuple Migrateur', "Microcosmos" and "Himalayas".

We are delighted to have a BBC crew here to film the basking shark section of the new series called 'Life'.

This will be a big production in the gendre of "Blue Planet' and 'Planet Earth'. I believe that this 10-part series will be screened at the end of 2009. It is focusing on the behaviour of the different animals groups. All very exciting, and it is so amazing to have such extraordinary marine wildlife right on our shores for the BBC to film.

Jonathon, Doug and Hugh, the BBC team have a special filming license from DAFF. This allows them to get closer to the basking sharks than is normally permitted, however, as they are trying to film aspects of basking shark behaviour they will probably be doing a lot of hanging round in stationary boats, waiting for the sharks to come to them. This is the only way that they will get to see anything near to normal behaviour as humans and boats inevitably alter the behaviour of the basking sharks. This is why we discourage people and boats from getting too close to them.

The photo shows them filming off Niarbyl on 29/07/08.

This excellent photograph of a basking shark right in front of the airport at Ronaldsway illustrates the importance of suitable mitigation methods being used during the building of the airport extension.

Basking sharks will not appreciate a mouthful of silt and neither will all the other less spectacular but no less important wild animals that live in this area.

This excellent photograph by Malcolm Lambert really shows the importance of putting in plenty of silt traps and baffles during the runway construction.

This was the most amazing basking shark day, flat calm and warm. A day suitable for tagging sharks.

We at Manx Basking Shark Watch have been waiting for a day like this all summer. We had 3 more tags to put on sharks and this was the day to do it.

At one point in the day 27 sharks were counted as being in view at once.

When the first shark was tagged there were 2 sharks intermittently parallel swimming. We tagged the 'follower' at 15.28. At first the tagged shark was thought to be female but when we looked at the videos more closely it was a male (oh the power of technology)! This male shark was at least 6m long. We have named him David. All the sharks satellite tags are programmed to come off in 120 days. We will not know where they have been until the tags come off and send us an email full of the data collected by the tag. The next shark to be tagged was amongst a group of 3 sharks. We tagged this 7m+ female shark, at 16.02. We have called her Liz. Finally, we used the last tag on a 7m male. There were 2 sharks in this group. One 6.5m female being followed by the large male. Both sharks were sexed by pole-camera and then, at 19.46, the male was tagged. We have named him Colin. The photo shows 'Colin' the 7m male shark who we tagged, VERY close to the female shark, engaged in social swimming. We have great underwater video footage of these 2 sharks and we intend to show this video on Marine Day, August 9th 2008.

Who knows where these wonderful animals will go? We are really excited about this project. If the results are a fraction as interesting as those from 'Tracy' the Tower Insurance Shark from last year we will be very lucky indeed!

PHIL is a 7-8m long basking shark. He was quite happily feeding about 4km West of Bradda Head when he was spotted by our tagging team. He was tagged by Graham Hall, Duncan Bridges and Fiona Gell at 15.06 with satellite tag number 08A0357. As you can see by the photos the tag is very firmly on! The tag is programmed to record data about the sharks depth, water temperature and its whereabouts (worked out from when dawn and dusk happen) for the next 120 days. As you can see by the photos the tag is very firmly on! The tag is programmed to record data about the sharks depth, water temperature and its whereabouts (worked out from when dawn and dusk occur) for the next 120 days. As you can see by the photos the tag is very firmly on! The tag is programmed to record data about the sharks depth, water temperature and its whereabouts (worked out from when dawn and dusk happen) for the next 120 days. Phil was spotted again the next day, happily feeding not far away, about 1km NW of Kitterland. The photo shows his dorsal fin complete with tag.

 Sunday 27th July turned out to be true red letter day for shark watchers on the Island.

After a light mist in the morning lifted, light winds and a near flat calm sea surface meant we recieved the first reports of sightings off Peel at just after 9.00 am.  Mal Kelly, out with some family and friends, reported groups of sharks 1 mile off Peel Castle, and most significantly witnessed not one, but four breachings, with adult sharks seen lifting fully clear of the water in spectacular curving leaps. 

Through the morning the numbers of animals off Peel built up, with a peak count at around 1.00pm of 28 animals observed in a 1km radius area.  Numerous pairs and triplets of animals were observed by the many watching boats, while a group of 8 were clearly visible to watchers on the breakwater as they swam just a few hundred metres off-shore.

As the tide approached high water, many of the sharks dissappeared - presumably dropping through the water column in their hunt for food as the tide slackened - but within two hours they were reappearing again. At approximatly 7.00pm, a second count recorded 18 animals within a 1km radius of a point 1.5 mile NW of the Castle, and further out a small group of 4 larger sharks were found, being carefully filmed by a crew from the BBC. 

One of these animals was particularly notable, being an impressively large 9 metre male shark who appeared to be keeping close company on the three females. 

The calm conditions and bright sun made perfect conditions for the Project's research work and many of the sharks were carefully observed and recorded, checking for skin patterns, rubmarks, lampreys and parasites, and details logged of size and sex using an underwater camera.  

But one of the biggest highlights of the day was the tremendous behaviour of the public and boating community out there watching the sharks.  95% of the boats we observed were driven with care and consideration of the animals, with families and fishermen, yachts and kayakers sitting motionless or moving at very slow speed,, just letting the sharks approach them in their own good time. 

A few boats were seen to pass through the area at speed -  in an area so densely populated with sharks this is  potentially a very dangerous behaviour, both to shark and boat alike in the event of a collision - and we would ask all those involved to take care, abide by the Basking Shark Code of Conduct and keep a clear lookout from the bow to avoid this situation.

Here are all the sightings from June, all 271 of them!! As can be seen, there were huge numbers of sightings all the way from Peel round to Port St Mary, with very few sightings elsewhere.

Out on Bob Taylors boat Gemini for another day of filming with the Belgian film team.

We found sharks in Port Erin Bay. Just as well as it was too rough to film out to sea! This was a very complicated situation. At least 2 or 3 of the sharks were under Bradda Head, very close to the cliffs, another 2 were over by the breakwater buoy, another 2 were close inshore in front of the old swimming pool. SO did we really have 6 sharks? I am SURE that we had 4 sharks, a 6m male with a nick in its dorsal fin, a 4m female (complete with lamprey) was filmed twice, a 5m shark, and a 3-4m shark. We sexed the sharks with the pole-camera. It works really well! John Painton rescued a gannet trapped in nets. The Belgian film crew got their footage. What a day!

We have a visiting film crew from Belgium. They are filming for a series called 'Animals in danger'

They came last year and were very unlucky with the weather. This year, despite very rough seas and even worse weather predicted they got lots of basking shark footage within hours of landing at Ronaldsway!

Let's hope that the winds die down and maybe they can film us tagging as well.

The photograph shows the Belgian film presenter Chris and Graham with his excellent pole-camera. We are able to sex the shark by looking under the water with this camera. We need to do this before tagging any shark. We are also using the pole-camera pictures to estimate the ratio of males to females and to try to identify individual sharks by looking at the patterns on their skin.

Mal Kellys account of what he thinks might be a pair of mating basking sharks off Contrary Head, Peel, Isle of Man, July 6th 2008

Three or four pairs were in close courtship (nose to tail following at less than one quarter of a shark body length) about half a mile off Contrary Head for possibly two hours, feeding but obviously teasing. Suddenly one pair started thrashing about in the water, very close together, with one tail coming completely out of the water. That was the most action but the water was agitated under the surface for up to a minute after with obvious action just under the surface. This was all taking place in a small area just 20m from the boat. At the conclusion the pair swam of in courting formation as before but started swimming South which suggested to me that this area off Contrary maybe a favourite courtship area. I have seen them here before. The pair I reported doing the same thing about three weeks ago were just inside this area.

Dermot Shimmin took this great photo of three basking sharks engaged in what appears to be very close courtship behaviour. The sharks are very close together, less than 1/4 of a shark body length as required by the scientific definition of putative basking shark courtship. Two are swimming parallel to one another and the third is close-following. Together they form a circle. GREAT photo Dermot!

You may remember that we tagged him last year and that the tag came off. We did consider trying again! I do not have a very good photo of the tail fin but I uspect that the Swedish Shark specialists may have and I am waiting for some images from them.

It would be very interesting if this IS the same shark as this kind of information helps us to understand shark behaviour and migration patterns. All very interesting!

Today we tagged a 7m long male basking shark. We know it was male because Grahams excellent pole-camera is working very well indeed! We can sex the sharks before we tag them.

This year we want to put our tags onto sharks where we are completely certain of the sex. We suspect that males and females may have different migration patterns.

We are also looking at what may be courtship rub marks on the sharks. All exciting stuff!

Many thanks to Brian Maddrell and Steve Cowley (dive boat Endeavor) for putting us on some sharks, and to Simon and Quentin De Backer for helping with the tagging.

What a great day!

Ian Judd saw a newborn basking shark in Fenella Beach Bay, Peel, yesterday (July 3rd 2008).

A newborn basking shark is very small (by basking shark standards)! Ian Judd, who often takes excellent basking shark photos for us all from his kayak, says "Well Jackie I have never seen a basking shark so small in my life. It was even much smaller than the 3.5m I had seen in Peel Bay a few weeks ago - no bigger than 2m. I tried to get photo but missed it. The size itself makes me believe that it was possibly only born in the last month."

Newborn basking sharks are only 1.5 to 2m long and look a little different. Their nose are very piggy - like, upturned, and their mouths are smaller but they are still unmistakably basking sharks. They cruise at the surface, little white mouths open, amongst the plankton, often associated with very big sharks. They are often seen very close into shore, often under cliffs like Bradda Head.

In 2005 Shane Stigant and Craig Whally were out kayaking off Peel when they took what is probably one of the very few pictures ever taken of a newborn basking sharks. Please look at the kids section of the information section to see this picture

What a day for Basking Sharks, maybe it has something to do with the new moon.

For the first time in a fortnight, the weather was really good for shark watching and we set up our telescope at about seven in the morning, A mother Harbour Porpoise and her calf swimming slowly and peacefully off the harbour mouth at Port St Mary. The phone rang and some neighbours had seen a large shark in Perwick Bay just off Kallow point. Sure enough, there it was slowly swimming in the tidal flow, a large shark more than 20 feet long giving me a show for more than an hour. Another Harbour Porpoise and