A Woodhead seabed drifter fitted with an acoustic transponding tag was tracked by sector scanning sonar for 25 h in the Shipwash – Inner Gabbard area of the Southern Bight of the North Sea. The drifter spent a significant proportion of each tidal cycle off the bottom. Both the extent and duration of these excursions into midwater appeared to be related to water velocity. At slack water and low velocities the drifter was on the bottom. As velocity increased, off-the-bottom movements began as a series of hops which increased in amplitude and duration until the drifter was in the middle of the water column for periods of up to 15 min. It is suggested that these movements reflect the scale of turbulence near the sea bed and have a bearing on the interpretation of seabed drifter returns.