More funny fins than first appeared

Nice one Macolm.

I think part of our lack of damaged fin sightings may be due to the distances involved at Strumble, although my impression is that they are few and far between. Alison Ross with whom I spent the morning at Strumble yesterday, told me of an individual seen several times in the sound with the top of the fin missing.

Alison came to Strumble so I could introduce her to "Click Counting" It is a recording techneque I have developed where every surfacing by every animal in view is "clicked" using a sheep tally counter over a five minute period. Three, five minute periods are observed within an hour at roughly twenty minute intervals, the result is then averaged out and x4 to give an hourly average. (4x15 mins = I hour)

Our tally for yesterday morning was an average of 540 per hour. Alison went off to Ramsay and pipped Strumble with an average of just over 600!

Of course we are not recording numbers of Porpoises, we are recording surfacings/activity. Neither are we recording all activity as we are likely to miss some.

What we are recording is a minimum. What we can say is that during a period of one hour on a particular day there were at least x amount of sightings.

This is something that can be carried out on any part of the coast by anyone at any time.

If you want to try it click here to see what to do...