Sea Otters | #BigBlueLive #SciSparksAdvent

For day 10 of my advent calendar, I thought we'd have a flashback to this summer's Big Blue Live. You may remember that the Sea Otters of Monterey Bay stole the show!They relax on the waters just of the coast of America and surprisingly are fairly closely related to the weasel. They are perfectly adapted to spend their days lolling back on the water, with their thick fur they can stay warm and toasty

I thought I'd leave you with some of my favorite sea otter pictures.... (prepare for a overload of cuteness!)

UK BLUE WHALE ALERT | #BigBlueLive

It's only been days since the entire British public was enthralled by the appearance of a Blue Whale on camera just off the Californian Coast, but it appears that they've been following us to the UK! In fact, this blue whale made an appearance 250 miles off the south west coast of the UK, which is actually a relatively small distance as far as scientists are concerned. Many Oceanographers have actually said they think it's one of the first images they've been able to capture since the Blue Whale was hunted to near extinction many years ago. The Oceanographers who saw the whale where actually doing a marine mammal survey when they saw seven fin whales when one of the researchers spotted the whale about a kilometer away from the boat.

Blue Whales are probably the biggest mammal which has ever lived on Earth - with one huge krill obsession! In one single day, they can consume about 3,600kg of krill! They spend most of their time underwater when they're diving for krill, then surface every few minutes to take a breath - lets face it, Blue Whales are AMAZING!

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Sea Lions | #BigBlueLive

Sea Lions - one of the stars of last week's Big Blue Live, they reside along the coastlines and islands of the Pacific Ocean. They actually live a pretty long life (between 20 and 30 years). They also use their adaptions to their advantage. It may well be pretty dark in the oceans but they find their way around with the help of their whiskers. 

Every one of their whiskers are loosely attached to their upper lip (scientists call their whiskers vibrissa) and can rotate around with the underwater current so they can sense their food nearby. It's not surprising that their diet mainly consists of seafood, from fish and squid to crabs and clams. Although one particular breed of sea lions actually eat seals, which isn't so good, but I guess it's all nature!

Their front flippers are also very clever! They help to regulate their temperature, constrict blood vessels when it's cold, constrict the blood vessel and increase the blood vessel size when it's warm. They can also manouver their flippers into the air to cool them off- something I reckon would be ideal in the height of the summer!

Sea Lions are just amazing creatures - they might not look like much but they're unbelievably clever, form incredible underwater spectacles and are just AMAZING! :)

#BigBlueLive | Part 2

Big Blue Live is literally one of the best TV programmes EVER. I love animals and marine animals but there's just something amazing when you see a humpback whale majestically leaping out of the water. But tonight, they're trying to beat everything from the last few days with an encounter with one of the biggest marine animals  - the blue whale. The whale weighs around 180 tonnes - absolutely HUGE!
Thursday night we saw how unique this period of time actually is - the water temperature averages about 16 degrees Celsius, around 3 degrees warmer than it should be (a lot warmer than the North Sea!) which means more animals than ever are flocking to the bay.
Scientists at the aquarium are amazed by the fact they're seeing animals that either never arrive at the bay or only see them every 10 or 20 years - if they're lucky. For example they've had an unprecedented number of crabs washing up on the beach and also caught sight of the Cooper Scollan.

The Great White Shark

Relaxing Sea Otter

They also had shark cam from a helicopter circling the bay, witnessing the incredible sights as the young sharks swim in the shallow waters close to the surface. Although I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of an angry Great White Shark, apparently 1 adult great white shark weighs the equivalent of an American Football team! Thankfully 99% of Sharks are fine with humans and as they rightfully said we remove around 100 million sharks a year from our seas and we need to be fascinated by them rather than scared of them, that way we can appreciate them and then can thrive across the globe.

And of course the Sea Otters stole the show again (not that I'm complaining!), once more the whole of the British public wanted a pet sea otter as Matt Baker documented a Day in the Life of a Sea Otter. One of the cutest moments in their day, has to be when they take a mid afternoon nap - they actually hold hands to form a raft so that when they're sleeping they don't drift apart. Luckily, the Great White Shark prefer seals and other animals with a higher meat content rather than the sea otter.

Cute Baby Sea Lion

As Liz jetted off around the corner of the bay we caught a close up glimpse of the many Sea Lions which have taken up residence on the bay. In fact, sea lions are one of our ocean's most dynamic predators and most intelligent too - they spend most of their day on constant look out for predators like the Great White Shark. Although even if they do end up on the wrong side of the shark they do stand a fairly good chance as an adult male can weigh as much as 60 stone! As well as being on the look out, they do also spend most of the day sunbathing in the heat of the midday sun, particularly this time of the year when the males aren't competing for females. Even when they are competing, an over aggressive male sea lion can easily put the female off.

Big Blue Live airs TONIGHT 7pm BBC1