Strumble Diary 17/04/2025

 Two sessions today firstly 0715-10.15am and the second 13.00-15-30pm.

Following on from Cliff's entry previously.

I arrived just after 7am with my first sighting coming shortly after which was around seven commons distant to the NW and moving NE. They moved through fairly quickly and were soon out of sight. What followed was a lot of nothing interspersed with sporadic sightings of five porpoise in total, not showing very well but I did manage a pic of one of them. A long period of inactivity then, so I called it a day knowing I would be back later for the dropping tide.

 

Afternoon session.

It took a while for the action to get going but then a half dozen or so Commons moved in just prior to the tide race forming. Most of them moved off leaving a single animal which spent almost the whole session moving up and down the tide race. The second half as they say, was far busier with some thirty + commons coming in to feed. Lots of Gannet activity as you'd imagine and some rather cute antics from a very young calf, plus a lovely calf breach alongside it's mother for my final image of the session. I only sighted two porpoise in this session quite well out and the sighting was brief and solo.

 

 

Strumble Diary 17/4/25.: Big tides = Commons and Porpoises today!

 Just an hour and a half at the top of the tide and dropping,10.45 12.15 light S.Westerly sunny reasonably calm with good visibility.

When i arrived there was a big distant feeding flock of Gannets about 3/4 miles out to the North and i could just make out what i am sure were Common Dolphins breaking the surface occasionally breaching beneath them. It took a while before I noticed a mother and calf Common Dolphin relatively close in. they were only just showing backs and fins most of the time acting a bit cagey as if not wanting to have their presence known. They remained within  a similar area throughout the watch popping up every now and again.

A steady trickle of hirundines flew in off the sea, mainly Swallows which added to the spring like feeling and our resident Rock Pipit did its trilling parachute display every few minutes. I wonder how many generations of these otherwise inobrusive little brown jobs i have seen over the past four + decades. 

It was about an hour into the falling tide by the time any Porpoises showed,  they were reasonably close and i managed this shot but missed a pretty spectacular bit of leapfrogging where one Porpoisee lept over another in what was perhaps a bit of breeding behaviour I had one or two more sightings before i decided to pack up! 

Bottle nose Dolphins a couple of miles away in Fishguard Bay on Monday, with Porpoise and Common Dolphin today not many places could match that here in the UK!

  

Bottles Are Back 14/04/2025

 The first Bottlenose encounter of the year and a very early one at that. A post from Holly in the supporters group sent me to the outer breakwater. The encounter was brief due to an incident I came across in the trailer park as I got there but that's another story. There were four or five bottlenose off the end of the breakwater which were feeding very actively allowing for some decent images. I managed a couple of images of a calf but not mother and calf together. They soon started to move off toward Pen Anglas so with the earlier mentiond incident still on my mind I made my was off the breakwater to assist. Cliff  and fran arrived at this point and took over the dolphin spotting and I believe some 10-15 were reported in total with sightings from the breakwater, Harbour Village and from Castell just around the coast. Hopefully this will be a long season of sightings and we can share more time with these stunning cetaceans.

Nearly got it.

Where'd it go?

Gottcha!!

 

Strumble Dairy 13/04/2025

 A short blog entry today.

I arrived two and a half hours into the dropping tide and before the tide race had formed. First sighting straight away was of a distant pod of commons with twenty or so Gannets above.  They moved slightly closer and I managed a shot of one racing through the swells before it returned to the pod (I guess) and that was it. As the tide race got underway I saw a few porpoise distant on the far edge of it and they moved through very quickly. Only two or three seen in the race but very briefly although I did see three moving east to west with the tide and only managed to get one of them on camera, as they move very quickly with the tide and you never know where they're going to surface. Nice to see the Fulmars flying past and a couple of Chough were foraging on the outcrops off to my right.

 

Strumble Diary 10/04/2025

Session 09.10-11.10am

Another stunning morning at Strumble today. Blue cloudless sky and calm weather/seas. On arrival the gannets were wheeling over the remains of the tide race from the flood tide with commons feeding below. They were distant though and soon moved off. Fifty minutes passed before any further sightings which were a further twelve or so commons darting through and quickly moving on. 

The ebb flow soon got underway and with it came the first sightings of porpoise moving in from the NW. Sightings were slow at first and the porps were being stealthy just showing once and diving again. Things did improve though and sightings became more frequent and most showed well close in. Two full breaches were the high spots of the morning shortly before the end of the session.

Some of you may have seen that, red/white, rather expensive looking private motor yacht enter Fishguard Bay this morning. It's called "Akula" and passed me at Strumble earlier this morning. 

 

AKULA is a luxury private expedition yacht designed with cutting-edge technologies and is just one year old.  Details if you want a look are here https://www.my-akula.com/my-akula/index.html

Nice one Ken! The Thursday Sea Trust  Photo ID team followed up (1100-1300) the activity continued with more breaching and hopefully more good shots!