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A keen amateur nature photographer who has captured everything from foxes and playful seals to choughs courting kingfishers and puffins - and even a heron spearing a rat in its beak and eating it whole - has once again caught a rare moment in nature - tuna leaping out of the water.
Martin Yelland has been making a name for himself in the photography world by capturing hard-to-get snaps of wild animals. The 42-year-old former St Ives postie, who now works for Lays Auctioneers in Penzance, is so keen to snap wildlife on camera that he has been known to go the extra mile to indulge in his passion.
In May 2023, he disguised himself as a puffin to take stunning photos of the birds in their natural habitat, wearing a decoy puffin on his head. Then in September, he donned his scuba suit to pap a pod of seals playing beneath the waves.
At the weekend (Saturday October 11), he was out enjoying a coastal walk with his family when he spotted Cornwall's emblematic birds the choughs and other sea birds.
His attention was suddenly alerted to what he described as an "explosion in the sea". Martin said: "My family and I were walking the cliffs enjoying a family walk, which we do most week ends. We had spotted choughs and sea birds before we saw an explosion in the sea. For the next hour or so we enjoyed watching, and trying to photograph, the bluefin tuna which were feeding fairly close to shore."
Martin believes there must have been about 15 tuna in the sea all feeding from a bait ball. He spotted the nature episode off the north coast in west Cornwall.
He added: "I think there may have been about 15 tuna, all feeding from a bait ball. There were loads of gulls, cormorants and shags involved too, plus a grey seal that breached, which I'd never seen before."
Bluefin tuna previously filmed in Cornwall
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