Whales in Wales

New Quay Harbour

1st March

Bright, blue skies and a flat, calm sea combined to produce a productive afternoon's porpoise spotting. I had sightings as soon as I arrived at the harbour, but I couldn't really tell if I was seeing one animal or several. Then, as the tide began to flow I saw three distinct animals in line astern. As the afternoon wore on, the sea became even more calm and I began to see more porpoises. The most that I saw on the surface at any one time was four - they were quite spread out, about 30 - 40 metres apart. One distinctive thing that I noticed was that occasionally, animals were stationary on the surface for up to 20 - 30 seconds at a time and there was associated gull activity, so although I couldn't actually see it, I assume that they were eating.