And more from the Dolphin Coast!

From Andy Bowen

I would like to record a sighting of dolphins off the coast of pembrokeshire on Saturday 27th June 09.
I own a 22 Channel islands cruiser called Osprey and on Saturday went out to try and spot some dolphins.
The intention was to make a passage out to Grassholm and back,however approx
2 miles due west of St Annes at approx 11a.m I came across a pod of approx 70-100 common dolphin.These dolphin stayed and played around the boat for about 90 mins.It was interesting that when they first approached the boat I was cruising at around 6 knts they did not appear very intersested as I was not producing a sufficiently large bow wave. When I increased speed to about
8-9 knts and my bow wave and stern wave increased they returned and played around the boat for some time.There were several young calves spotted and both mothers and calves were broaching clean out of the water.At one point a group of about 6 harbour porpoise came close and the dolphins went straight for them and chased them off. After this incident the dolphins returned to play around the boat.One of our other boats Blue Shark was about 2 mile east when this show was going on carrying a a party of divers.The skipper made his way over to me and the dolphins also played around the boat riding the bow wave.
Eventually all the dolphins headed NW with the tide towards Skokholm.
I have the exact lat and long on my gps if you are interested.

By the way I am a W.I.S.E.
accredited skipper

Nice one Andy, and the fact you have made the effort to take a course about acting responsibly around marine wildlife is cool. We always support the Pembrokeshire Marine Code (see link oppopsite) which was put together by local conservationists and boat operators to help protect our marine wildlife.

I should point out that to deliberately chase or harrass dolphins and seals as well as basking sharks etc is a criminal offence. If you come across dolphins don't chase them, if they come to you, just keep on a steady course, enjoy them, but let them leave when they want to, allthingsgood, cliff

Gotcha! and a bit more cetnews...

Yep Rich, a pretty hectic few days on the Dolphin Coast, including now a wall of Common Dolphins a mile long and several deep! I rekon 1500 minimum but we will never know for sure! If it had been as calm as the last superpod in 2005, It may have been even more because the distant ones were lost in the chop!

Had not time to put in results of Stena Ferry Trip I did Friday/Saturday and it seems a bit of an anticlimax now but produced 3 seperate Minke sightings, Common dolphins and most gratifyingly Porpoises at Strumble.

Just to make sure I was not deluding myself after hours of hardly seeing any over the last few weeks, I got off the ferry and drove to Strumble where 20 minutes of Click Counts (4x Five minute click counts within an hour) produced a total of over four hundred sightings or 20+ per minute! Back then, but will they stay?

Super Pod !

After the numerous recent sightings of Dolphins off Pembrokeshire expectations were high for a Sea Trust survey aboard the Cartlett Lady arranged at short notice by Cliff Benson.

Nearly two hours out from Neyland we had not seen a cetacean of any sort but then a pod of 50 or so Common Dolphins appeared and after a while they came over to us and several, including some calfs, rode in the bow wave. A nice foretaste of things to come.

A little later approaching the Smalls Lighthouse things really got exciting as there were several thousand Gannets milling around and fishing. Under them there were really large numbers of Common Dolphins and as we motored along we just kept seeing more and more - some close to the boat and others some way off. Sea conditions were rather choppy so it was difficult to guage numbers but best estimate was of 1500 plus animals strung out over a mile or so with a range of ages from small calfs to full adults. Needless to say a real spectacle!

Ynyslas Bottlenose's

Sighting from Bob Relph - There were a couple of Bottle-nose Dolphins off Ynyslas again this morning at about 8.30.They were close to, and at one point in the middle of a feeding frenzy.c 60 Gannet and up to 1000 Manx Shearwater concentrated in a fairly small area to the South of the turn car park.

Sightings Galore

A number of sightings sent in by e mail - apologies for not getting the info on the Blog sooner.

Sighting from Jane Williams - Last Monday 22nd at 18:30, four of us saw 5 dolphins close in shore in Seal Bay, Newport side of the Witches Cauldron. This time I am not sure if they were Common or Bottlenose! We saw a mother and calf again and not too far away, three more adults.

Sightings from Paul Tarrant - I was walking on Rhossili Down, Gower at about 21:30pm Wed 24th June and witnessed about 15 – 25 dolphins playing in Rhossili Bay. They started off in an elongated line and then when into a circle breaching out of the water, with some just leaping and clearing the water in an orthodox manner but at times some would clear the water by about 2 metres and splash violently down. Others cleared the water and stood on their tales whilst spinning in a pirouette. They were a fair way out but observed well by me and friends through binoculars. We watched them for about 10 – 15 mins in what was a truly mesmerising show. Sea conditions were flat calm and tide was full and very high.

Sightings from Malcolm Barradell - 26 June fairly large (c50) and active group of Common Dolphin provided great long distance entertainment which made up for the lack of porpoise in Ramsey Sound of late. Alison Ross and I watched this groupo in St Brides Bay for a good 20 minutes this afternoon, lost lof leaping and side slaps and tail splashing.We saw between 4-7 porpoise which as been the normal maximum throughout the last two months.

Sightings from Bob Relph - From the turn car park at Ynyslas at about 11.30 this morning (27th) I saw at least 2 Dolphins, Bottle-nosed I think, one of them quite close to the shore.Much, much further out, on the horizon in fact, through my telescope I saw two more cetaceans which I thought were considerably bigger than Dolphins. They were moving very fast, heading North and surfacing every few seconds. Sorry I can't tell you what they were but they appeared grey on top and lighter underneath. They really did look big!

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.

Dolphins popping up all over, but where are our Strumble porps?

A message on my answerphone from "Vigilance" Skipper Mark yesterday, offering a trip from Newport to Neyland was too good to miss so I dropped everything and headed for Newport.These inshore transects give a really unique view of what is happening around the coastline and I was anxious to get another view of the Strumble peninsular in particular. The conditions were good and as we rounded Dinas Head out of Newport Bay I felt sure that any Porpoises would show well. We had nothing from Dinas Head to Strumble Head, no gannets or any other sign of activity. Our first sighting was a porp off Pen Brush and then a couple more off St Davids Head. We caught three more of the "Shoe" In Ransay Sound followed by nothing more thasn a few nice puffins and auks as we crossed St Brides Bay, passaged through "Jack Sound" and enterd into the Haven.
In the bar at the marina, Pete from the range boats had been seeing lots of Porpoises and dolphins in the Bristol Channel and around Caldy. He reckoned unusual amounts ogf porpoises which corralates with Rob Colleys observations in early June.
Andy rang to say the "Cartlet Lady" was ready , and he had seeen Common Dolphins actually enter the mouth of the Haven on Tuesday night...
We may have a survey trip out on Sunday on the Cartlett Lady if weather OK and people are interested,£50 per head, allthingsgood, cliff

News From Steve Rosser; Nash Sands

Nash Sands off Porthcawl, Bristol Channel

A couple of casual sightings for you, all today 22 June

09.30 51.27.47 03.42.57 single porpoise
10.25 51.26.04 03.46.30 4 adult porpoise and 1 calf staying close to mum swimming west
15.30 51.27.02 03.48.00 1 adult 500 metres off my port side
4 adults 100 metres off my starboard side.

There are reports of a basking shark in the same area yesterday

I would have guessed that I met the same group but could not see the calf.

Dolphins Martins Haven

Sighting by Dave Astins on the Pembrokeshire Birds blog worth repeating here - Whilst having a very relaxing BBQ at Martin's Haven this evening (21st) I was surprised to see a large pod of what I am 99% sure were Common Dolphins heading west in a long line out of the Bay towards Skomer. There must have been 50 or more, with many completely clearing the water and crashing down with huge splashes, move very fast from east to west. I had a chat with 2 foreign tourists who are staying at the campsite just along the coast path who said they had seen them 3 times today in the bay - they were surprised when I told them I had never seen a Common Dolphin in there! Worth a look?

A call from Titch a local Fisherman yesterday evening , told of a "small dolphiny thing " in the harbour (Goodwick) by the slip. I motored down there and found a throng of locals with Gethin (Tich's Brother). Apparently another fisherman had found it stranded on the rocks high and dry and put it back in the sea. He said it had screamed when he touched it !

The animal was bobbing around in a confused manner obviously in a bad way. We watched for a while in the hope its mother would turn up but it soon became apparent she was not around. Meantime Rod Penrose of the Marine Strandings Agency and Phil Lewis RSPCA/ BDMLR had been contacted.

I decided we aught to try and recapture the animal as it seemed unable to swim and was just bobbinng around on the surface. Gethin got his boat andf we gently approached. The baby porpoise was floundering and I easily caught it.

we went back to the slip and I realised I would have to sit in the water with it until help arrived.

It was a cold hour but a little group of people including a gang of local lads kept me company. It was nice to see these "tough guys" showing real concern. All the time I waited I could feel the little animals heart beating as it breathed regularly, blowing water in my face.

I have seldom felt so dispondent because it was obvious that without its mother it had no chance of survival and inevitably we would have to take the sad decision of putting it to sleep. Eventually Andy of Fishguard Vets arrived and quickly administered a lethal dose. The baby died peacefully in my arms.

I had been watching Bottlenose Dolphins the day before just outside the harbour. Some divers who were with Celtic Diving staying at the nearby dive base mentioned seeing a dead cetacean "about a metre long " floating off Dinas Head. It is a well documented fact that Bottles will kill porpoises , a mother with a young baby would be extremely vulnerable.

I was up and about early this morning and spent an hour on the outer breakwater. It took a while to find them but a distant spout and a glistening of water running of the back of a bottle was just visible in my Binoculars. I set up my scope and as I focused on the area off Dinas head a couple of miles away a bottlenose dolphin surfaced accompanied by several more. They were fishing under a dozen or more gannets.

Guilty or not guilty? we may never know and in a way it does not matter as we should not judge animals in terms of human morality. All we can do is try and protect their environment and hope they continue to grace our Pembrokeshire coast.

If ever anyone doubted that we are the "Dolphin Coast" of Wales this blog provides ample proof of that!

Pelagics with Thousand Islands Wildlife Expeditions of, St David's, Pembrokeshire

During the last two days we have completed a number of offshore trips with Thousand Islands Wildlife Expeditions and a party from WDCS and had excellent sightings including many Common dolphins. Yesterday we were treated to a fantastic spectacle of a group of 9 Risso’s dolphins surface foraging for shoaling fish a few miles from the island of Grassholm They were joined for a time by Common dolphins.
The Risso’s dolphin technique was seemingly to use tail and body to create a shock wave either stunning or killing fish thus allowing them to be gathered. Although we have heard of this from local fisherman we have not seen it, or photographed this before.
We have also seen on the trips Minke Whale, Porpoise, Storm petrels, and feeding frenzies of both Gannets and Manx shearwaters. Other recent sightings have included Skuas, Basking sharks and Orca.

Many thanks to Janet Baxter for the attached photographs she took on yesterday's boat trip

Things that aint common seem to be commoner, things that were common getting scarce!

Conditions perfect , tide right, sunny and even a few spectators but Porpoises hardly put in an appearance at our second biodiversity week event. We used to call them common Porpoises before the yanks lumbered us with Harbor Porpoise, either way they aint common around Strumble at the moment.

Shirley Mathews who is spending a week on Skomer (Lucky Shirley) saw porpoises in Jack Sound and from the "Dale Princess" others have been seen off the Garland Stone.

She just rang to tell me that on the last boat over to the island several commons were seen from the Dale Princess. Common Dolphins used not to be common inshore but it seems they are this week!

from "Stevo" Lucas...

We were at Mwnt yesterday for a couple of hours, and we saw a group of about 9 bottlenose dolphins playing in front of us for about half an hour. Wonderful.
Have you had any sightings in this great weather?
Allthingsgreat, Steve

Nice way to start a day!

I awoke around sixish to look out of the window to see fog.

It cleared by 6.30, I took it as an omen and shot off to the Harbour (Fishguard)

The sea was smooth and I saw nothing for an hour I decided to call it a day and drove back to the gateof the outer breakwater. I then remembered some rope I had found, hmm leave it ? go back for it Hmm it was a nice bit of rope back we go...

BINGO! a bottlenose had sneaked in , I caught him just off the end of the breakwater. A scan around revealed a few more, all were running on "unobtrusive mode" just surfacing to breath and then mooving before surfacing, difficult to second guess where and when.

I have said this before and will say it again counting cetaceans accurately is almost impossible. I know there were two mothers with Calves as they surfaced miles apart within a short distance of time There were probably at least for more adults but could have been six. They were well spread out and reacting to a few boats, really difficult to keep a track on.

They were still around when I had to leave to organise our porpoise watch for this afternoon.

Best place to view them from is probably the car park above the harbour at Harbour village, I just hope they stick around and are not too hassled by all the boats taking advantage of a sunny Sunday,

Sounds good for Alison!

Pic' Rich crossen

Alison Ross came on one of our WOW (Wildlife Observer Wales) courses and I think it changed her life! At the time Malcolm Barradell was in the middle of his study of the porpoises in Ramsay Sound and I sugested she might utilise her new found skills by helping Malcolm.

I think it is fair to say she made a big contribution to Malcolms work and has gone on to continue this work on her own. There are a lot of people that try and mysticise and overcomplicate wildlife observation but its really all about stickability, the patience, the endurance and a little bit of obsession.

There are days when the conditions are difficult even days when the conditions are perfect but you still draw a blank. Alison had been having a lean time at Ramsay Sound recently with porpoises almost as thin on the ground as at Strumble. Today her perseverence paid off and the porpoises seemed to have returned including one sighting of a mother and small calf.

As she was preparing to leave, some big splashes on the far side of the sound caught her attention and was delighted and thrilled to see a pod of around 20 common dolphins indulging in some extreme arobatics leaping, twisting and crashing back into the sea! Alison enjoyed the spectacle for around 40 minutes when for no obvoius reason, they suddenly decided to go and left!

A just reward for a lot of effort and her third species along with Risso's and porpoises in Ramsay Sound in under six months.

Sounds good to me too!

Still no porps but something popped up!

A Strumble first! and one of several sightings of marine otters in recent months in north Pembrokeshire! It saved the day as we searched in vain for any sign of a cetacean in an otherwise mammalless sea, except for the odd grey seal.
PCC County Ecologist Trevor Theobald and Biodiversity Officer Bethan Cox had joined us for a Biodiversity week event which the public stayed away from in droves, perhaps put off by a lousy weather forcast. Trevor noticed some gulls were mobbing something below us and found the otter making its way in the surf along the foot of the cliffs. By some small miracle I managed to get this shot as it surfaced!

Another day with no porpoises... Whats happening?

Yesterday I spent two barren hours looking for porpoises at Strumble Head and Fishguard Harbour in the morning. Last evening Richard Nichols invited me on his boat and we motored up to Strumble Head, arriving there at around 8pm. We cut the engine and spent two idylic hours just drifting back to Fishguard on the tides edge. Not one porpoise, no feeding birds, plenty of Plankton, I dont understand this... Today and Sunday as part of Wales Biodiversity week we are running a "Porpoise Picnic" (today 11.45 - 14.30) Sunday 14.00-1600. weather permitting.

Lets hope its not porpoiseless picnics...

Where are our porpoises?

A worrying lack of porpoises around Fishguard and Strumble over recent weeks although we have had a sighting of a mother and small calf at Strumble last week and two mothers with small calves seen by Alison Ross in Ramsay Sound yesterday. As part of our national biodiversity week contribution we will be holding porpoise watches at Strumble;
Friday 12th June 11.45-14.30
Sunday 14th June 14.00-16.00
let's hope the porp's turn up!

Common Dolphins, Turbot Bank

Sighting and photo from John McIntosh - About a hundred or so Common Dolphins were feeding around the Turbot Bank, to the south-west of the entrance to the Milford Haven waterway, yesterday at about 2pm.

It aint easy!

The Irish sea between Fishyguard and Rosslare seems to have been alive with cetaceans this week. I had hardly stepped aboard the Stena Europe before I heard the familiar words: "You should have been here yesterday" ...



After several days of flat calm conditions and not too bad a forecast, my mouth watered as crew members described both Minke and Fin Whales breaching, a giant tail fluke hovering, (humpback?) even the suitably taciturn Senior Master, Captain David Farrel enthused about hundreds of Dolphins arounde the ship as they approached Fishyguard.


First time ferry surveyors Miguel Sanchez and Stephen Davies listened to the non stop goodies as the sun shone down on the bridge prior to departure. Within ten minutes the wind rose the sun dissapeared and it began to spit with rain...

And yet despite worsening conditions over the next 20 hours, we caught a glimpse of a Porpoise around Strumble, three sightings of Common Dolphins and incredibly in gale force conditions, two brief glimpses of Risso's.



I wish I had better photo's but as Ringo said, "you know it just aint easy!" The one above which looks a bit like blamonge is in fact a common directly below the bridge wing as the ship was leaping about in a really chunky sea!

Common Dolphins off South Pembs from David Saunders

Dear Cliff,

One of Shirley's friends daughter & husband posess a boat, I have no idea how large etc but I believe it is a launch rather than sailing.

They were out in this yesterday - Friday somewhere just outside the firing range exclusion area off Castlemartin where they were surrounded by a very large number of dolphins, some coming so close they could almost touch them.


Best wishes

David

Fishguard porps...

I visited Crincoed Point, Fishguard grid ref SM 951400 on wed 27th May about 3.30 pm sighted 3 Harbor Porpoises feeding for half an hour 8-10 Gannets were also seen feeding with them.
Margaret Phillips-Jones

Photo: Steve rosser

Colley Boxes Clever!

Rob Colley and his Gower Marine Mammal Group who are partnering Sea Trust in surveying the Western Bristol Channel for Cetaceans had an incredible day yesterday (Wednesday)
whilst surveying the Eastern box;

casual sightings (to-from survey box), 17 encounters: 23 porpoise, 110 Common dolphin.

transects: 41 encounters: 36 porpoise, 217 Common dolphins, 8 Minke, x1 Fin?/big whale.

Aurelia jellyfish: range of estimated # - "10s of thousands" - "millions".
2 Black terns, one Pom. skua, one Great skua

Rob thinks one of the Minke's had a distinguishable fin that may be the same as another seen two years ago... The large whale sounds like a Fin , hopefully examination of photographs will clarify. When I spoke to Rob he described the Minke's coming up to and circling their boat!

The Jellyfish angle looks like a big clue, must be lots of plankton production going on!

Mums and Calves.

Another early start rewarded with female bottlenose with calf in the area around Pen Anglas and then moving slowly North across Fishyguard Bay. The calf seemed to be in a frollicky mood looks like a yearling. I have not had a good enough look at mumsy yet to see if there are any distinctive markings. A couple of hours later at Strumble, not many Porps showing but one mother and small calf pair passed by Mackerel Rock and headed outwards in a westerly direction seemingly chased by another adult. Alison Ross also reported a small calf from Ramsay Sound over the weekend.

Dolphins off Gower

Sighting of Dolphins off Gower on 2 June seen by Gordon Howe -Three pods of dolphins 2 miles out perhaps 50 in all feeding on the Helwick Bank 4pm. Flat calm but the most I have seen in nearly 40 years!

Brief encounter...

The mornings are too good to waste abed so I was out early on the Fishguard breakwater.

Fishermen Tich and Gethin were up before me and already rounding Pen Anglasas I arrived.
The sea was flat calm and no sign of any bird activity so I made my way down to the harbour mouth.

As the drone of Tich's engines faded the full magnificence of the morning was highlighted as a brace of Dolphins became apparent making their way in, with a single Gannet overhead.

Probably the same mother and calf duo from last week they came within 200meteres of the shore foraged and frolocked for a short while before making their way out towards Pen Anglas.
A superb reward for getting up early! allthingsgood, cliff