Thursday 25 June 2009

Common dolphins moving North?

Photo Rich Crossen

Hi Cliff,
A small pod of approximately seven Common dolphins were spotted by volunteer researchers from the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre in New Quay on Saturday 20th June 2009.
The sighting took place while the volunteers were conducting the Dolphin Watch Survey, a land based survey on behalf of Ceredigion County Council from New Quay harbour wall on Saturday afternoon. The sighting was a very exciting one for the volunteers and the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre as Common dolphins are not usually seen so close inshore in such shallow waters in Cardigan Bay.
The CBMWC’s volunteers man the “Dolphin Watch” New Quay harbour site and collect data on behalf of Ceredigion County Council who also have other “Dolphin Watch” sites along the Ceredigion coastline including New Quay headland (Birds Rock), Ynys Lochtyn, Aberporth & Mwnt. The sighting was later confirmed by other “Dolphin Watch” volunteers who were manning the site on New Quay headland and also spotted the dolphins travelling fast past the headland a few minutes later.
Come to Cardigan Bay you never know what you might catch a glimpse of!
All the best,
Sarah
Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre, Newquay.
This follows a report from Jane Williams;
Hi Cliff
At 13:30 last Tuesday, on our way to Dinas head, coming back from watching seals half way towards Moylegrove, we headed ½ mile off shore towards 4 circling Gannets, and thanks to them, we saw 5 harbour porpoise, heading in towards the cliffs / Moylegrove way. After we got back on course to Dinas, only a few minutes later, we couldn’t believe our luck! We saw 2 Common Dolphins, 1 juvenile and 1 adult, heading in the same direction, sadly, we only caught one glimpse of them, unlike the porpoises, who were very busy.We count ourselves very lucky, as none of our Newport Boat Club fishermen, that we had spoken to, had seen any and were complaining at the lack of fish, so we weren’t expecting to see anything!
Because of the location I had been slightly hesitant as to the species ID and had questioned Jane later, but all seemed well.
This report from Sarah confirms the sighting which are the first two sightings north of Fishguard I had heard of in recent years.

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