Dont' you just love it!

This is what you get when people are willing to work together and share their efforts, nice one Malcolm!

Image M Barradell

Hi Cliff,

re Alisons porpoise on Monday,
I was out there too, hosting a group of our friends from Van Hall University in Holland,
we were watching the porpoise close to the copper mine and I managed to get off some shots, so attached is the marked individual.
I have definately seen this animal before and will take some time this weekend to go through my porpoise pics and hopefully forward a previously taken pic and a date.
Its been very stormy of late and numbers have been lower but still some good shows around the area of the copper mine, the place to be at the turn of the tide.
cheers
Malcolm

Blimeyo'Riley!

The walrus and Rich Crossen and his cameras wandered around the Fishguard Harbour outer breakwater, for a profitless half hour with nothing more than a dissapearing snow bunting to show for it, A couple of hours later (minus Richard and his cameras) I went back and found a small porpoise close in, swimming about near some pot bouys.  a few moments later it swam in a strraight line parallel to the shore aqnd joined another bigger porpoise, presumably its mother. After a bit of surfacing together they went out, off towards Pen Anglais. No Rich, no camera, no picture... blimeyoriley!

Ramsey Sound Today

Sightings from Alison Ross who was watching the sound from above the coppermine today, between  11 and 12.30 ... several porpoises sen over the period wit three seen together at one point. May have been the same animals or severalpassing through . One animal had a very obvious notch in the top third of the trailing edge of its dorsal fin .

Strumble Porpoises

From Stevo Lucas -
Thursday 17th November - Chris and I went to Strumble Head at 2pm and.

We saw a single Harbour porpoise on is own in the ebbing tide race the time of the sighting was roughly about 2:30pm ish.

It was quite a brisk and stiff southerly wind force 6

Thursday 24th November - Chris and I went to Strumble Head at 3pm and

We saw 4 Harbour Porpoises in the flooding tide race.

The time of the sighting was roughly 4:00pm half and hour till the daylight fades away.

It was a stiff southerly wind force 6 quite choppy and difficult to pick out amongst the white horses.

Cheers, Stevo

More Risso's at Strumble this morning!

Image: Rich Crossen: Risso's North Pemb's 09.

Strumbler and regular contributer to Whales in Wales , Adrian Rodger just phoned in to tell me that he had a close encounter with four Risso's at first light this morning as they came around Mackerel Rock travelling west past the Strumble lookout  towards Ramsey out of Fishguard Bay ! He described them as two larger  adults  and two smaller individuals. He did not spot any particularly unusual features, the light was not good, although one large adult appeared to have a lot of scarring around its head. A quick phone call to Tich a local pot fisherman confirmed they had been around and he had seen about nine or ten "very active" feeding around Strumble on a couple of days last week. Tich also told me the scallop fishermen had been catching big squid in their trawls "as long as your forearm". He also confirmed that there were lots of herring around in Fishguard bay at the moment, which would probably attract the squid in to feed. Whether the Risso's are feeding on squid or herring is difficult to ascertain,it seems they may be spoilt for choice!

Phew, Porps still at Strumble

A visit to Strumble today with Alison Ross produced several porpoise sightings. the calm sea allowed them to be seen but their surfacings were extremely unobtrusive and in anything less calm and in the subdued winter light they would have been almost impossible to detect. A report from Adrian Rogers in the bird blog also mentions there were a few about yesterday. Maybe not sosurprising that they were not seen by Mark and Dan but I doubt if they would have missed any bottles.

Still something out there then! ...report from Ian Hotchin

Hello Cliff,

Out sailing yesterday afternoon, in a position about half a mile off French Camp, (Fishguard Bay) I saw two adult porpoises, heading West against the tide.
Regards, Ian
Well done Ian!

European designated Marine Special Area of Conservation ? its a sick joke.

I had been waiting with some eager anticipation for a report from Mark Williams, skipper of the Briggs/Environment Agency survey vessel "Water Guardian". He along with Dan Worth were on passage from Aberystwyth to Milford Haven yesterday starting at first light. The first leg of the voyage is a straight line from Aberystwyth to Strumble Head, straight through the SAC. I have just spoke to Mark and he tells me conditions were good with calm seas but they saw nothing.

Nothing that is except for a dozen or more scallop dredgers trawling their heavy sets of dredges over the sea bed of Cardigan Bay Special Area of Conservation.

There can be no more effective way of destroying the marine animal communities for which the bay is world famous and for which it gained this designation.

It beggars belief that the Welsh Government allows this to continue at the same time as spending hundreds of thousands of pounds organising talking shops to discuss new marine protected areas. What is the point of designating such areas if there is no real protection? I guess it keeps the suits in a job...

Things moving up North!

Hello Cliff,



After several weeks with no cetacean sightings from our lookout at Porth Dinllaen, Gwynedd, things have picked up significantly over the last week.


Bottlenose dolphin (20) passing Trwyn Porth Dinllaen heading west at 15.20 on 10.10.11


Bottlenose dolphin (1 adult / 1 juvenile) 200m west of Trwyn Porth Dinllaen at 11.45 on 11.11.11


Bottlenose dolphin (4) 2 mile N/E of Trwyn Porth Dinllaen at 14.00 on 12.11.11


Bottlenose dolphin (1 adult / 1 juvenile) west of Trwyn Porth Dinllaen at 16.15 on 17.11.11


Bottlenose dolphin (20) north of Trwyn Porth Dinllaen at 10.50 on 19.11.11


Bottlenose dolphin (4) north east of Trwyn Porth Dinllaen at 12.30 on 19.11.11


Kind regards.

Martin Moore.


National Coastwatch Institution, Porth Dinllaen, Gwynedd.
 
Thanks for this Martin, great to be able to see something of the bigger picture! In recent years bottles have been turning up in numbers off the Irish coast . I begin to wonder if this might be as a result of the scallop dredgers hammering Cardigan Bay during the winter months, it might also explain my lack of porpoises? 

Is the southern Irish Sea the best place in the world to see Risso's Dolphins?

(Just in from Adrian Roger),
Jonathan Bennet reports having seen four Risso's just below the cliffs near St Justinians in or around the northern entrance of Ramsey Sound (not specific.) Jonathan is a keen local birder and knows his stuff, so great to get this message through the local birders grapevine!
Update... apparently they were very  close in under the cliffs , so close Jonathan could  not only see the blows but also the blowholes opening and shutting! Lucky man, it must have been a thrilling few minutes until they moved off to the north, presumably having come through the sound.  
I spent a short watch at Strumble with no sightings and begin to wonder why, as I have seen nothing there for some time which is incredibly unusual.

Image: Ramsay Risso's, Rich Crossen sept 09

Although we can never gaurantee Risso's off the coast here they do turn up reasonably frequently. Given decent weather from June through to about now I would put a fair bet on seeing them from the Stena Europe on one of our surveys. There can't be many places where you are in with a good chance of Risso's if  you put in a bit of time and effort!

A tale of two octopii

images CB

We had  four octopus in the tank last year. The first, survived several weeks untill a power cut one night killed most of the tanks inhabitants. Subsequently others survived no more than a couple of days

We have spent a lot of time and money on our aquarium in the Ocean Lab since then and thanks to the know-how of Miguel Sanchez (our erstwhile Faro volunteer now living and studying in Aberystwyth), it is set up pretty well . Sea water aquariums are pretty high maintenance and we have upgraded the filter and cooler system .Tony and Stevo Lucas have given a day most weeks helping me to refresh the water and keep it clean.

I was looking forwards to trying again as they (Octopuses)  tend to be found in the fishermens pots as winter sets in. I would not have persevered if it were not for the fact the first one had been fine until the power cut. I got them from local fishermen who would otherwise have killed them as they eat lobsters, so although it was sad that they died they would have been dead anyhow. Better to have a chance with us and to be there for people to see and wonder at them. They are amazing creatures and it blows peoples minds to find out they are actually swimming about no more than half a mile away from the Ocean Lab, in our waters.

I let my fishermen friends know we wanted another octopus if they caught any and within two days we had two! They are now both in the tank, a small one (body size about same as a tangerine), has excavated a burrow in amongst the rocks at one end of the tank and I thought it must have dissapeared until sharp eyed Angela from the Tourist Information Centre spotted it. The second one (body size about the size of an average orange), is less shy and is pretty visible. It also seems pretty voracious having allready killed and eaten a small goby and a bootlace eel! I have now managed to get it to eat tesco peeled prawns and am hoping they will satisfy its appetite.

These octopii are Curled Octopuses Eledone cirrhosa named after their habit of resting with their tentacles curled into ringlets, (see above) . They both seemed to have settled in and although they are related to snails, and other molluscs are considered to be highly intelligent.
I tend to let things go after a while and as these animals natural lifespan is pretty short we will probably let these go after Christmas and hopefully replace them on a regular basis, unless of course they start succesfully predicting the results of football matches!

Posted by walrus at 12:24 AM

Shorter days but they are still out there!

Images: Steve Rosser

It is annoying to think how our programme of Stena ferry surveys has been disrupted this autumn by unfavourable weather . Trying to understand what is happening out there is dependant on resonably frequent visits to keep abreast of who is where. As we enter into the winter phase of short days, darkness cuts into our outbound survey at the point where we penetrate what has become known to us as the "Risso's Triangle" a consistantly productive area as we approach the Tusker Light. Luckily we know from our Strumble watchers that Rissos were pretty active off our coast during this period but were they the same animals we had been seeing in the Risso's Triangle?

Again the weather forecast was wrong with higher winds than forcast and rougher seas but none the less we recorded ten sightings of three species in five hours of survey. New girls Jill and Barbara were delighted with several close views of Porpoise ,Common Dolphins as well as porpoise and Risso's the last two of which Steve Rosser managed to photograph. It was hard work and we really had to dig them out, pretty chilly as well!

Thanks again for the help we get from the Stena Team, both onboard and shoreside whose support really makes the difference!