Last chance for October

Images: Steve Rosser

It seems difficult to believe but there has hardly been a day of calm weather suitable for a Stena Survey since the beginning of September. In past years these months have provided some of our best and most enjoyable surveys with loads of cetacean sightings and plenty of birding interest as well
We just scraped a survey yesterday and today, conditions far from perfect but do-able.
Yesterday after leaving Strumble the sea got up to Sea State 3-4 , and only calmed down as we approached the Tusker. A low sun made life difficult and some small cetaceans on our bow but in the glare remain unidentified. Some very distant huge splashes  a few miles off the Irish coast could just be verified as a breaching Risso, but we couldnt find it again as we got closer to the place we last saw it, extremely frustrating!!!
Today dawned calm as we awoke in Rosslare Harbour. Frustration again as several mixed feeding flocks of birds failed to show any cetaceans but as we left the Tusker in our wake a small group of Common Dolphins were milling around ahead of us, only  to be lost in the glare as we approached, aaaargh!
Thankfully I located a distant but active pod of about twenty  further on, they gave nice if not close views. The conditions were quite calm and we spotted another very distant group which I got in the 'scope and confirmed them as another group of about ten commons.
Things went quiet as it often does in the middle stages but about seven miles off Strumble, we started to see odd porpoises every few minutes ending up with a total of fourteen sightings of three species over our two  combined  surveys. Worth doing and we had some nice bird sightings,but I hate to think what we missed especially as the crew spoke of large blows seen on both Tuesday and Wednesday about 15 miles off Strumble....

Poppit Bottles

Image CB

Image: Ernst Schriver

From : John O'Sullivan 7:07 PM (15 hours ago Sunday)
Sat on the grass just above the rocks at the extreme left hand side of popit sands this morning. Within seconds a bottlenose surfaced just offshore. I then lost it for a while but then noticed an odd swirling effect on the basically flat sea just behind the surf line. Realising it was probably the Dolphin I focussed on the spot and was surprised to see a foot and a half ?sea bass jump clear out of the water followed closely by a dolphin. Seconds later a dolphins head appeared with a big fish (same?) across it's mouth. A few minutes later two dolphin appeared, they then seemed to swim straight out to sea. One dolphin had a normal coloured dorsal fin the other had a greyer area towards the top of the dorsal.

Thanks for this John, nice to get one from Poppit on the Teifi Estuary, quite a lot of dolphins have such markings (see above) to see them catching fish is also pretty exciting. I have illustrated it with an image by Ernst Schriver taken off the harbour wall at Newquay earlier this year.


October has been a blustery wet month but even then its possible to get sightings from the shore.

Its looking like we might get out on the Stena Europe on Thursday/Friday/Sat? the first time conditions have been looking favourable since September!

More Strumble Rissos

From the Pembrokeshire Birds blog news of 18 Risso's off Strumble today - seems highly likely to be the same pod from last Thursday. Thanks Wdigbirder and Richard Davies for braving the cold to spot them!

News in From Red Liford

Thursday 13th Oct, Strumble Head.

Risso’s dolphins: between 10 am and 11.30 am pod of 19 including 6 calves.
Red also phoned me with a report , apparently they were foraging and he described one of the calves as "snowy" October can be one of the most productive months for Risso's from the ferry but sadly conditions have not been suitable for most of September or this month so far. Hopefully we will get a lull before the end and manage to get out and see them.

Porp pops up... but Steve goes hungry!

From Steve Rosser -  A single porpoise was around my boat for about 5 minutes this afternoon 1 mile south west of Sker Point, Porthcawl. I hope it fed better than we did because all we had was dogfish and conger!

Risso's continue to be sighted from Stormy Strumble!

A call this morning from Adrian Rogers to tell me he and Chris Grayell both had brief sightings of a big light grey Risso's  in the wind lashed waters off Strumble whilst looking for migrating sea birds. There is obviously some inshore Risso's activity going on at the moment and its usually a great month for them off the Stena Europe, although the atrocious mix of wind rain and fog is severely disrupting our Stena Ferry surveys this month.

Wales in New Zealand

22-10,  sorry Ireland...

Rogers finds more Strumbler Risso's...

A call from Adrian Rogers this evening to tell me he had more Rissos this afternoon at Strumble about 6-9 individuals...
Funny thing is Elfyn, they are on the periphery of the bay but not really in it. they are seen around the Tusker , Arklow Banks, Isle of Man, Bardsey and seem to be around here right into the winter but Steve Hartley has been working the bay, a lot of the time for twenty odd years but dont see them.
WDCS have had funding to study them on Bardsey over the years, but I cant find much info on this. I suggested to them some years ago that we should work together but got nowhere.
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group website has comprehensive info but as yet there is no coordination of effort.

Risso's Dolphins off Bardsey

Cliff- Just to let you know that I was talking to some of our local Mach. folk the other day viz- Alan and Mair Hughes and they had spent a week on Bardsey Island in mid September and they had seen a group of Risso's dolphins from the island. Historically I'm aware that Risso's are often seen off Bardsey and it intrigues why that is. What is it that attracts these enigmatic animals to Cardigan Bay in general? Is the Bay a productive area for squid which is an important food item on the Risso's menu? Why is it that nobody is conducting a study into this theory? You and I know that the Bay is probably one of the best places in the 'World' to see this species and yet there doesn't seem to be any organised and detailed scientific study conducted to establish why the Bay is so vitally important to their survival. It's now well recognised that over the last few years 'Sea Trust' has amassed some vitally important data on the abundance and distribution of Risso's in Cardigan Bay particularly on the Fishguard-Rosslare ferry route and in my opinion, for what it's worth, a more thorough and detailed study should be conducted into the population dynamics of the Risso's dolphin in the Bay.

More Ramsey Risso's!

Another 2 (or same two as yesterday?!) off the north end at 15:35. Not seen for long due to very rough seas

Risso's around and about...

Risso's passed by Strumble around eight o clock I think, 6+ seen by Adrian Rogers and the the same group or maybe more, seen by Pete Murray, I will try and get more accurate timings Greg, but I suspect yours were seperate.
I arrived a bit later and it was obvious given the big seas that getting an accurate count would be difficult.although the Strumblers assure me they got some cracking views as the Risso's seemed to be on a mission.
The interesting thing is that over the years we have seen Risso's pass east into Cardigan Bay and return west out of Cardigan bay but there are virtually no sightings of Risso's much further north than Fishguard untill you get sightings from the Lleyn and off Anglesey.

Ramsey Risso's

2 Risso's dolphins off north end of Ramsey on a morning seawatch at 08:10. Strumble had 6+ past around this time so might have been part of same group?

More from Stevo and Chris...

Monday 3rd October
Chris and I went to Strumble Head at 2pm andWe saw 3-4 Harbour Porpoises in the ebbing tide.The time of the sighting was roughly about 2:10pm ishThe sea conditions was quite a brisk south westerly winddifficult to pick out amongst the white horses
Cheers Stevo

Aber Bottlenose

Hello there.

I took this photographs from the beacon at the entrance to the Marina Aberystwyth on Thursday 29th Sept.

I'm sorry the quality is not very good as they were taken with a pocket camera.

Regards Christine Davies

Thanks Christina - good to have your report.

Porps around Fishyguard. north and south! Thursday 31stSept

Intrepid sailor Ian Hotchin phoned in to let us know there were two adult porpoises feeding just NW of Dinas Head this afternoon as he was sailing by!
I was also out at Strumble the other side of Fishguard watching Porpoises sub surfing as a bright sun made the tops of the big combers coming in from the west transparent. As the waves subside the porps seemed to pop out onto the surface .

Bottlenose Bonanza

....and the Bottlenose activity continues......on charter this morning we picked up Dolphins as we rounded Cardigan Island spread over a wide area......between the Island and Mwnt there were literally Dolphins active everywhere you looked. Sulaire was out from Newquay undertaking CCW photo ID work (approaching the Dolphins and called us up to explian why they were doing so.....)

We counted at least three mothers with calves and were treated to some great acrobatic displays whilst sat at rest.....We reckoned on having seem in excess of 25 animals!!

We then headed over to Ceibwr where we picked up another couple of animals......just fantastic!

Strumble Porpoises

From Andrew & Ruth Crowder - A couple of hours at Strumble this afternoon in calm conditions. Only 3 porpoise seen, 2 adults and 1 older calf/juvenile - the two adults were feeding constantly with the calf surfacing often on its own, about twice as frequently as the adults.  Also 6-7 grey seals.