Southampton Weather

Solent Marine Wildlife Sightings

Dolphins • porpoises • seals • cormorants • gulls • even the odd black swan

The Solent isn’t just tankers and tide tables — it’s also home to a surprising amount of wildlife. Bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoises are seen most years, common dolphins turn up from time to time, and both grey and harbour seals haul out on sandbanks and spits around Southampton Water and the Beaulieu River. Harbour seals in particular have quietly become a real Solent success story: up to 50 have been recorded on recent surveys by the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, having only re-established themselves here over the last couple of decades. Above the waterline, the Solent’s coast and harbours are just as busy: cormorants drying their wings on posts and buoys, herring and black-headed gulls everywhere, and — genuinely, if you know where to look — the odd non-native black swan.

Recent verified sightings near the Solent

Pulled from GBIF, the public database that aggregates real UK citizen-science sightings (iRecord, the National Biodiversity Network, the Mammal Society and iNaturalist). Locations are shown as a broad Solent zone rather than a precise pin — see “Where this data comes from” below for why.

Meet the species

Bottlenose Dolphin

Tursiops truncatus

Robust body and a tall, curved dorsal fin, up to about 4m long. The Solent’s most frequently reported dolphin.

Photo: Ian Andrews (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Short-beaked Common Dolphin

Delphinus delphis

Smaller and slimmer than a bottlenose, with a distinctive hourglass pattern of tan and grey along the flanks. More of an offshore visitor here.

Photo: Ben Rumsby (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Harbour Porpoise

Phocoena phocoena

The UK’s smallest cetacean at around 1.5m, with a small triangular fin and a shy, low, rolling surfacing - no leaping or bow-riding like a dolphin.

Photo: Liam Echevarria (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Grey Seal

Halichoerus grypus

The larger of the UK’s two seal species, with a long, sloping “Roman nose” profile. Present in the Solent in smaller numbers than harbour seals.

Photo: Steve Evans (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Harbour (Common) Seal

Phoca vitulina

Smaller, with a shorter, concave “dog-like” face. A genuine Solent success story - up to 50 recorded on recent surveys, per HIWWT.

Photo: ikelman (CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Great Cormorant

Phalacrocorax carbo

A large, dark, goose-sized diving bird, often seen perched on posts, buoys or harbour walls with its wings held out to dry - its feathers aren’t as waterproof as a duck’s.

Photo: rosestephens (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Herring Gull

Larus argentatus

The classic “seagull” of chips-on-the-beach fame - pale grey back, pink legs, yellow bill with a red spot, and a loud yodelling call. Red-listed: numbers are actually declining.

Photo: roselandflorafunga (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Black-headed Gull

Chroicocephalus ridibundus

The smallest common UK gull, with a chocolate-brown (not black) hood in summer, a red bill and legs, and a harsh, laughing call. Often confused with the smarter Mediterranean gull, which shares the Solent in growing numbers.

Photo: Andrew Skotnicki (CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Black Swan

Cygnus atratus

Not a native British bird at all - originally from Australia - but a well-known local fixture on the River Itchen at Riverside Park, Southampton, where they’re seen on a near-daily basis, plus a small breeding presence at HIWWT’s Blashford Lakes reserve.

Photo: Paul Masters (CC BY-NC 4.0, via iNaturalist/GBIF)

Best chance of spotting one

Calm, sunny days give the best chance of the marine mammals — a flat sea makes fins and splashes much easier to pick out. Good vantage points include the Isle of Wight ferries and hovercraft crossing the Solent, the seafront at Calshot and Lepe, and the shoreline path around Hurst Spit and the Needles. Seals are most reliably seen hauled out at low tide on quieter sandbanks and spits — please keep a good distance and don’t approach, especially in the spring/summer pupping season. The birds need far less luck: cormorants and gulls are around every harbour, quay and riverbank in all weathers, and the black swans are a genuinely reliable, near-daily sight on the Itchen at Riverside Park in Southampton — something of a local celebrity fixture there.

Seen something? Report it

Where this data comes from: the “Recent verified sightings” list above is fetched periodically from GBIF, which aggregates real, publicly-licensed UK sighting records. It isn’t quite real-time — sightings typically take days or weeks to be verified and uploaded by the original recording schemes — and locations for sensitive species are often deliberately blurred to a wide area by the recording bodies themselves before publication, which is why sightings are shown as a Solent zone rather than a precise map pin. Individual recorders’ names aren’t reproduced here even though the underlying data is public. Species photos are real GBIF/iNaturalist occurrence photos, credited to their photographers.

See also: Solent Lifeboat “Shouts” • Local Tides • Local Marinas • Local Sailing & Racing Calendar