Porps and Swallows!

Hi Cliff,

Didn't see too much porps in the last few days. On thursday André and I spotted around 9 individual porpoise at Penllechwen who were heading to the Ramsey Sound...So we expected to see them at St. Davids head as well, but we did not..guessed we just missed them. But we did see 3 Swallows!! First ones we have seen this year!


Went to St. Martin today, very hard wind and the waves were quite high (ss 3) and only spotted 2 porpoise between 12:00 and 13:00, Not that much but it was nice to see them surfacing in the crests of the waves..didn't manage to get them on film properly, wich is a pitty!

Cheers!

                                   This picture is made at Penllechwen on the 29th

A barrel of questions?

"Overnight in Y Llanfa, Aberystwyth.... Calm seas but no Cataceans....  lots of Rhisostoma Octopus (Barrel) Jellyfish in the clear waters between Llanrhystud and Aberystwyth" excerpt from Dan Worth Facebook message.

Rhisostoma or Barrel Jellyfish are the main food for the elusive Leatherback Turtle. I first remember being amazed at seeing some really big Rhisostoma's  in the Celtic Deep in March some years ago. At one time we saw quite a few regularly off the ferry particularly around Rosslare Harbour although this has ceased to be so in the last two or three years. all the same they seem to be just as common in Cardigan Bay these days. It seems likely  these big  jelly fish are not just swept along on tides but may be  capable of navigating to some degree. Either way it would be interesting to know a bit more about their seasonality which in turn might help us to understand more about Leatherbacks.

Strumble eve...

Arriving at Strumble just as the crimson sun was halving itself on low cloud and dissapearing, a couple of porpoises were slowly surfacing off the head. Adrian Rogers had also seen some there this morning

Bay of Dolphins!

Hi Cliff- Glad to hear you had a good survey on the 'Stena Europe' ferry on Wednesday. I sailed back on her this morning after spending a few days in Ireland. I was eager to get out on deck so I left my dear wife 'cwtched up' nicely in the 'Premium Plus' lounge! (very nice too). I can assure you that I had my fill of 'free' crisps, wine, coffee, olives etc; (well it wasn't free really as we paid a bit extra for the privilege but it was a nice treat!). A black cat perched on a 'very' high wall at the Rosslare ferry terminal watching the boarding proceedings was probably a good omen. Anyway enjoying the lovely black 'gillies' in Rosslare harbour is always a pleasure as we sailed out into a sea state 0 to 2 (it remained like that all the way across). As you know we sailed out at the usual time of 9am and by 9.15am I had spotted 4 porpoise feeding around the area of the buoys (port side) and at 9.30am came the tell tale signs of 'splashing' ahead of the ship and sure enough I had by first sighting of common dolphins of the year. They were foraging quite steadily with the occasional breach, they were spread out into around 3 close groups and I estimated their numbers to be in the region of 60 plus animals. I'm sure I saw a few with calves too (is it to early?). They were fairly close to the ship but weren't interested in 'bow-riding'. A nice little group though. I didn't get anything then until we were just about to enter Fishguard harbour when I spotted a single distant porpoise. Bird-wise I had my first 'kirriking' sandwich terns of the year and at about 11.15am far away from land a pair of ravens flew over the ship! I reckon they were probably flying in the direction of Ireland (N or NW anyway).

Dolphins, Dolphins, Everywhere!

As we made passage between Newport and Cardigan today (water sampling) we spotted /were approached (at some speed) by a few Bottlenose Dolphins.....including two mothers with calves..... then we became aware that there was activity all around us as far as the eye could see..... Without wanting to over-egg the pudding, well in excess of 20 animals..... We watched them milling about for a while (no decent shots as we forgot the camera !~@£"!*!) as we tried to move off /on with the survey the animals bow rode alongside often with several animals abrest, and taking it in turns to ride into the bow wave from alongside.... they were obviously feeling very playful (as always must stress we did not chase /pursue them and were crawling along on a constant bearing when we did move off)....
I was sure one of the animals was 'Top notch' although not apparent from the video, and another of the animals had a very distinctive white patch on the RHS of its Dorsal Fin (see vid).... any ideas on ID anyone?
They stayed alongside for a good 10 minutes (the video is edited down to 5 minutes and was taken on the Blackberry....hence only close quarter stuff made the edit) before we managed to leave them behind /continue our passage and sampling work.....
A great encounter with lots of very inquisitive animals.....my overriding impression is that they were extremely interested in us today.....
We are sampling between Cardigan and Aberywyth tomorrow then on to Porthmadog Friday..... Will keep our eyes peeled :-)

VIDEO here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W53n6yY_7Y&feature=youtu.be

The first whale of spring... and a swallow!

I woke up at half past six and the weather was just too good not to jump on the Stena Europe and see what we could see. I rather though David Cuniffe might be up and about so I gave him a bell, and yes he was and yes he thought it would be a great idea. I waited a bit longer and then phoned Eirian Garrard, she couldn't do the full four crossings due to work commitments but was keen to do the return trip. In a matter of three hours I had a team and our places booked on the Stena Europe!
We sailed yesterday afternoon and although the sea was pretty calm and we were all concentrating hard we had only two porpoise sightings and a brief sighting of two common dolphins that surfaced on the bow, so there was little evidence of the movement from the previous week on that sailing. Sadly Eiri' had to get off at Fishguard at Midnight but Dave and I slept our way back to Ireland for a fresh start from Rosslare this morning.
Dave was firing on all cylinders and clocked a couple of Porp sightings up to and just past the Tusker Light. 
Staring hard into the hazy blue i saw the briefest glimpse of a big black back dissappear beneath the surface a long, long way away.  "Whale"  I shouted and kept on staring through my bins, desperate to refind it and let Dave get a view of it. I kept on staring at the spot and nothing , Zilch Nada . We passed by the spot and I almost gave in, but a quick last glance behind us showed a ripple on the  smooth calm water. Then a bit of a wave and then the Minke surfaced, Yowza! first whale of spring  seen clearly by both of us.
The middle section was pretty uneventful but we managed to add another nine sightings, all porps, in the last hour including 34 animals of which at least two were calves. add that to 6 porps and two common dolphins and the total comes to 40 porpoise 2 common dolphins and 1 minke whale  over a total of just over 6 hours effort observation. Not bad I reckon. Oh, and about ten miles off Strumble a swallow flew past us heading west my first hirundine of spring, although we saw loads of Manxies and both common and Sandwich terns so it seems spring has sprung !
Fair play to the Dutch guys as well, nice porp pic's. If you want to email me a phone number I will try and get you on the ferry some time.

Hello Cliff,

Has been a while since our last post, but today was something nice to notice.
André and I've been to the St. David's area and could clearly see the Porpoise moving from northern directions towards the Ramsey Sound. Some Porpoise were acting like real models, so we could make a few nice photo's of these "hard to get" animals.
In total we spotted about 20 individual porp's...Not a bad day at all!

Ogmore Porpoise

From Steve Rosser - At 10.00am this morning while birding on the rocks at Ogmore-by-Sea, Vale of Glamorgan I spotted a single porpoise only a couple of hundred metres offshore. My first from the shore at this location.

Cliff's latest 'Stena' survey

Hi Cliff- I was interested to read about your 23rd/24th survey on the ferry. I crossed over on the 22nd to attend the European Cetacean Society conference in Galway and I spent some time on deck all on my to todd! It was pretty calm and yet I only 'positively' saw one porpoise! That was on the Irish side. I really thought I was losing my touch but following your comments maybe its just that they were not around in any numbers. Anyway bird-wise there were a few more 'manxies' about than I saw on the survey with Steve a few days previous to that day.

Anyway staying on the 'birding' side of things on a drive to the 'Cliffs of Moher' in Co Clare on the 24th I spotted an 'Alpine Swift' - Now how do you think the local Irish would have reacted if they had seen this odd guy standing on the roadside punching the air and shouting the word 'YES'! (Hopefully no-one saw me!). Keep your eyes open for this fabulous species people. Its the right time of year for them.

Hi Cliff

Spent an hour at Pen Pedol at low water yesterday, and just one solitary porp seen briefly swimming from east to west twixt Shoe Rock and Ynys Eilun. No gannets seen either, but saw a couple of seals and cormorants out there. On the way back at the Copper Mines I was rewarded with a superb view of a solitary porp swimming vigously down the Sound in an alongated zig zag. It surfaced very close to the shore right by me - great to see the power and athletism of these wonderful creatures at close quarters.

Pob hwyl.

Phil Lees

Nicely put Phil, they really can be quite fascinating, if you get (an all too unusual)  good view . Talking to Roger Strawbridge who works on the Megan M the  Aberporth range boat, lots of Bottlenose activity off Aberporth recently! 

Birds' Rock Porpoises

Sunday afternoon 5.00 p.m.

An hour of observing yielded just two porpoises - looking very relaxed - logging, staying very close together and occasionally shallow diving. Oh, and my first gannet of the year too. I still have not seen any bottlenose, but according to reports they are about.

Stena Europe survey 23/24th March.

 LtoR, Survey Team: Steve Davies, Stevo Lucas, The Walrus, Steve Rosser and Tony Lucas.

Another Sea Trust Stena Europe Survey was delivered on Friday and Saturday with quite interesting results. On Friday despite calm (SS2) seas  and plenty of experienced eyes searching, we managed only one porpoise sighting, two animals under a feeding group of gannets auks gulls etc. This was not more than half a mile off Rosslare Harbour. Leaving Fishguard on a low spring tide probably meant most of the Strumble porps were out of sight to the south of Strumble, so no real surprise we missed them. But given the fact only a week ago, Porpoises were seen in numbers all across the Irish Sea in similar calm conditions might reinforce the theory that a movement was taking place last week.
The return on Saturday was less calm with SS4 most of the way but interestingly, with  three porpoise sightings. These were all on the Welsh side and bar one, all within coastal waters. Big surprise of the day was a small pod of four or five Bottlenose Dolphins seen muddling about about ten miles west of Strumble. This was extremely unusual and may have been some more returning to Cardigan Bay.

Distant Bottlenose...

Skomer live, great stuff! More on Pilot and another porp from Stevo!

Hi Chris thats great, well done! I am hoping we might have a nice bit of kit for you soon! will be in touch.
Celtic Wildcat Skipper, Nick o' Sullivan gave me some images of the Pilot Whale that recently stranded at Llanstadwell.
From what I can make out Pilot Whales were possibly much more abundant in the past. Andy Rickard filmed a pod off Skokholm about ten years ago and they are also mentioned by Mark Cowardine in the Wales section  of  his book about whale watching in Europe, published in 2003.  Having spent thousands of hours afloat in the waters around Pembrokeshire I have yet to see any here other than the two dead/dying  ones that have turned up in Milford Haven. They tend to be found in deeper waters than ours, feeding at depths on squid. Something I had not noticed before when watching them off Tenerife was the teeth, which from this head shot are particularly impressive, thanks for the pic's Nick.

Speaking of the Wildcat, just had an email from Rich Crossen that our 28 April Wildcat Trip. only has 5 places left. I always find the first trip out in the spring incredibly exciting so if you want to get a look at the bird colonies Islands and hopefully see some cetaceans up close book early while you can! details of how to book are available on allthingsgood, cliff,


Monday 19th March
Chris and I went to Strumble Head at 2:30pm.
and we saw a single Harbour Porpoise in the flooding tide race, the time of the sighting was roughly about 3:10pm ish.
The sea condition was flat calm with a couple of white caps
Cheers
Stevo
Sent from my iPad

Hello from Skomer

This is a pledge to report Skomer cetacean sightings on this blog! (Cliff, drop me an email and I can put you in touch with Sarah Harris - Assistant Warden who sighted the passage on the 15 March SKOMER BLOG

4 Porpoise north of Jack Sound during the top of the flood tide.

Chris
Skomer Warden.

Porp sightings just keep getting better!

Martin Thomas 21:36 (12 hours ago)

18th March 4pm, Swansea standing on the headland between bracelet bay and limeslade bay to the right hand side of the life guard station looking out into the Bristol channel.   Spotted a small pod of 5 – 6 Porpoise.  Just like small black dolphins surfacing slowly, an Incredible 100 meters or so off shore. I grew up here have surfed all over Gower but have never seen a site like it before? Not sure if they come in this close in normally?

Their surfacing was quite slow just slipping up every 2 of 3 mins, generally one after another, then quiet for a minute.   They stayed in the same area just of shore for a good half an hour. The tide was in, the water very calm. They kept circling around in the same area just off shore.  One adult was slightly smaller than some of the others and would surface together with another smaller dorsal fin in synchrony. Which I assumed was a mother and infant.  Wonderful to see them up so close kids were thrilled. 

Saw Phils mail below from the 5th March and will take a camera to catch them next time. Martin, Sara, Jacob and Riley Thomas.
Hi Gang, really nicely described observations here! and interesting that porps are so prevalent all around Wales at the moment. The amazing thing is that although Porpoises are by far the most commonly seen ceatacean around our shores we really do not know a great deal about them. I have been watching them for years but still find it impossible to really work out what tyey are up to.  Its incredibly difficult  working out what they are actually doing or even counting them accurately. Mostly its down to food so if the food is close to the shore its likely they will follow it in. You say "One adult was slightly smaller than some of the others and would surface together with another smaller dorsal fin in synchrony." A classic mother and small calf sighting but generally speaking females are larger than males. Its always difficult to judge sizes in the field. Sometimes we see what appear to be a mother with a smaller yearling and a small calf but usually the larger mother and calf would be close with the juvenile hanging around less close. Its interesting to conjecture what the group dynamic was but there may be a little nugget in here that some time in the future adds a small piece to the jigsaw. Well done and good luck with your sightings in the future, would love to see any pic's you get! 

Browsing through the bird blog I noticed this, on the list of birds seen on Skomer...and 37 Porpoise


(Sarah Harris)
 
That is a really big count for anywhere I will try and contact Sarah, but it does sort of key in with what looks like a bit of a movement!

Stevo's Strumble Porps

A call from Stevo yesterday just to say he had seen some porps at Strumble so the Bottles had not scared them all off!
 It had escaped my memory but just previously to the arrival of the Bottles at Strumble on Thursday, I had seen at least a dozen Porps which had made themselves scarce when the bottles arrived and for some time after!

From Dave and Sarah...

Hi,
At about 10.15am Sarah noticed some ripples in Pwllgwaelod bay and then saw some dolphins we walked along the cliffs to get a better view and then saw three groups one of about 6, one of about 3 and the other with 4. While we were watching these to the left more ripples 2 more and then another group of about 4. Then further out to sea another couple of groups two groups of about 3 or 4 Bottlenose dolphins. We watched them for about 15 minutes, as we walked back up the field from the cliffs at about 10.30 the pod of about 20-25 seemed to be slowly moving north around Dinas Head.

:-)


Dave


It is so rare to see bottles off Strumble especially in numbers. I was once alerted by Lyndon Lomax that a similar sized group had passed Carfai Bay and gone through Ramsay Sound. I estimated that if they were still travelling at about 20 mph they should turn up off Strumble anout an hour later... they did! Onother tim Stevo and I had a cold evenless trip across from Rosslare and then Neil Couzins spotted a similar sized pod off Strumble. All these happened late winter, and it seems likely they were returning after a winter break!

Cardigan Bay Bottles return?

A gloomy misty morning had me thinking that the first wheaters might turn up at Strumble, Something definately did but they were not birds. My fishermen friends Tich and Gethin Rees were passing by in their boat Avalon heading around The lighthouse when I noticed a big swirl and a fin at least a mile out. I soon sas w several more heading North. I watched at least a dozen go by and then jumped in the cr and headed for fishguard Harbour , They arrived within a couple of minutes of me getting on the outer breakwater. It was difficult to count them as they were well spread out in fours or fives with others inbetween. Sadly an incoming scalloper seemed to push most of them out and away but three came into the harbour mouth briefly . Sadly I ghad to go but a few minutes ago I got a call from Dave Edwards and Sarah Earl, who were watching at least twenty frm Pwlgweilod.... more later!

Porps all over the Irish Sea

Steve Rosser led the latest Sea Trust -Stena Irish Sea Survey, which set of yesterday afternoon and arrived back at lunchtime today, prodcing  a phenomenal 24 sightings over just over 6 hours of survey effort averaging around three sightings per hour or one every 20 minutes. Apart from an unidentified but distant probable whale sp., all were of Porpoise 42 individuals in total including two definately identified calves.

Porpoise: Steve Rosser.

Local expert Elfyn Pugh and rookie Peter Evans joined Steve in the porp fest which (unusually) continued right across the St Georges Channel. Although the conditions were pretty good and favoured Porpoise sightings they were by no means exceptional. This phenomenon of  regular porp sightingsright across, has only happened on half a dozen occasions over the past eight years but may well point to a migration or at least a localised movement of some sort. From the sightings of porpoises all around Wales this month it seems they are thriving in our waters.

Next month we will be entering our ninth year of continual monthly surveys. No doubt the surprises will continue to mount up!  Well done lads!

Ramsay Sound porp's rocking in the mist!

Hi Cliff,

its been a bit frustrating to have such calm conditions combined with poor visibility,

however the last few days have seen a further increase in porpoise numbers in and around Ramsey Sound.

A combination of observation from myself , Ben and Andre recorded around 25 Porpoise North of and approaching the sound on Monday,

and Yesterday 35 -40 porpoise were seen passing through the sound with the turn of the tide.

Loadsa Porps!

Cliff, Sean McCarthy and myself at Strumble Head on Saturday from 4-5.30 pm saw seals and many porpoises, Rich Campbell

Harbour Porpoises

John Parry 16:23 (6 hours ago)
to me

0915 Monday 12th March 2012. Three separate pods of about 4 animals each pod spotted in the bay at Amlwch Port opposite Llam Carw. Very active and appeared to be feeding. One pod very close to shoreline other pods approx 250 metres out.
More winter porp sightings from up north, great stuff John

The Dutch are watching you porps!

Dear bloggers of Whales in Wales,

Our names are Ben Frederiks and André Dijkstra, we are two Dutch students from Van Hall Larenstein university of applied sciences. We are currently working on an internship at the Ramsey Sound area, our goal is to observe and determine the whereabouts and migrating pattern of Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) through land based observation.


We have been spotting actively in the Ramsey Sound for almost 4 weeks already, and we were amazed by the large amount of activity in the Sound by Porpoises since we don’t get the chance to see them in the Netherlands very often (unless they are beached). Our main spotting zones are near St. David’s head and Penllechwen. In the last week we saw a frequent amount of porpoise gathering and moving in various directions close to St. David’s head, this gave us the opportunity to make some photos of these amazing mammals…Though we experienced that it’s a real sport to catch them on camera in a proper way! The seals instead were much more easy models ;)


Especially the 25th of February was an exciting day, we sat down at St. David’s head and could almost immediately see several (about 5 to 7) porps about 300m away, we think they were foraging because of the various orientation of the animals. There were even some juveniles/calves that stayed close to the adults while surfacing, we weren’t sure about it being juveniles or calves because we haven’t had confirmation on which is which yet. This all was nice to see, but suddenly another creature caught our attention…floating in the area we saw a large unnatural behaving object, it was larger than a porpoise or seal, but not as big as a pilot whale! When we watched it floating towards the southern Bishops we could clearly see what it was…the corpse of a cow! To us this seemed very unnatural, does it happen more often? We guess it felt off a cliff and drowned. Very unfortunate, but it was our sighting of the day!


In upcoming months we will be spotting every week consisting of at least two days St. David’s head and Penllechwen, and if we see interesting things we will let you all know.


Cheers!


André Dijkstra & Ben Frederiks

Hi Andre and Ben, great to hear from you both, you are following in some big footsteps and  Van Halle has sent some really great people here to north Pembrokeshire who have really added to our knowledge under Malcolms guidance. Hope t
o meet up with you both soon, allthingsgood, cliff

News from Phil Coates

Mon 5th March



Limeslade bay Swansea (Mumbles head) 15.30hrs Harbour porpoise - 2 groups c 3 inshore (50m) c 5 or more offshore (400m) . in same area > 30 mins observation.


weather med swell. Murky water. High tide NW F5 wind.
Phil




Thanks for this Phil, I am presuming you were aboard "Crynogwen"?
Great to get winter records from the Bristol Channel!

Ferry Good Carl, Thanks Stena Line!

On Saturday afternoon, forty odd Sea Trust supporters and volunteers gathered at the Theatre Gwaun in Fishguard for Sea Trusts Sea Views event where Carl Milne Transport and Freight Manager, Stena Line presented a Fish-Cheque for £4,000 sponsorship to Sea Trust secretary Tony Lucas.The money will go towards  enabling  us to continue our work within the community. Stevo Lucas and Cliff Benson then went on to give an illustrated talk about our work with local schools and setting up the Ocean Lab at Fishguard Harbour as an out of classroom learning centre and awareness raising facility.
I have to say the support and commitment we have recieved from Stena Line over the past eight years has been amazing!
Many thanks to Carl for giving his Saturday afternoon up to present the  Fish-Cheque  Thanks also to Gaynor McMorrin of Fishguard Arts society for providing this Video as well as the Stena Sea Trust Treasure Hunt Video!

Strumble porpy leapfrog!

This early evening with the lengthening day we went to Strumble to enjoy the last minutes of what seemed like a lovely start to spring.Only a few minutes there and slack water on a neap tide but several porps seen a couple of which were indulgeing in what we have comew to recognise as Porpoise leapfrog where after a couple of splashy interactions one porp leaps over another, breaching completely out of the water.
After yesterdays sad events with the Pilot Whale it was good to see lively little porps.
Terry Leadbeter kindly rang me to let me know more on the post mortem of the Pilot Whale carried out by Paul Jepson and Rob deVille for the London Zoological Society . We will have to wait for the full results but initial examinations revealed it was an subadult male showing all the signs of poor nutrition. Impossible to say why but perhaps due to being separated from its pod although it may just have been what James Herriot would have termed a poor do-er! Its the second Pilot Whale I can remember having entered the Haven, the other being an old female at least seven or eight years ago which stranded in Mill Bay.

A few more....

Further to Cliffs' post below, here are a few more images (cameraphone /grabbed when we weren't in the water etc, so not great quality i'm afraid).....

The PM is due to be carried out today, will be interesting to see what the cause was, but as soon as we recovered the Whale from the water it was clear to see what poor condition it had been in..... a sad outcome, but certainly the best for the Whale. I would also like to add my sincere thanks to Briggs Marine (and in particular Gerry Walker) with whom I had spent the day (aboard EA research vessel 'Water Guardian' with skipper Mark Williams who was also heavily involved in the efforts yesterday) when the call came in..... Briggs sponsor the WinW blog and by allowing us to use their resources for yesterdays efforts made a huge difference in terms of time to respond and reduction of suffering for the animal.... Thank you!!

EDIT / UPDATE - 2/3/12

Rod Penrose, Strandings Co-Ordinator for Wales has emaqiled me the following update "It turned out to be a boy, it had pseudo mammary slits just to make me look an idiot on the radio. could only tell when we opened him up. Only just becoming sexually mature going by the testes, stomachs were empty so had not fed for a long time, insignificant burden of parasites and blubber was very thin. A pretty sick animal but nothing major was found on gross post-mortem. We’ll have to wait for further tests on the samples we took"...... Thanks Rod

More on Whale...

A great bit of cooperation between Pembrokeshire marine people, coast gaurds etc.  I managed to alert our friends on the Briggs EA survey vessel "Water Gaurdian" who had just arrived in the Haven (Mark, Gareth and Dan) The animal, which turned out to be a Pilot Whale. was obviously lost and going to keep on stranding. The Briggs boys launched theiir RHIB  (2nd pic') and helped  to keep the unfortunate animal from stranding again until the vet could stop its suffering being prolonged. This was never likely to be a happy ending but loads of people worked together to do their best for the animal rather than   allowing its agony to go on and on, Well done to all concerned and thanks to all that phoned or emailed to alert us. Its a chilling thought that in the Faroe Islands , thousands of people get together to kill Pilot Whales for fun!  

From Malcom Barradell

Hi Cliff,
numbers of porpoise in and around Ramsey Sound are starting to get back to their prewinter numbers,
Since Saturday between Ben, Andre and myself have seen around a dozen or so porpoise off St Davids Head and in, and South of, Ramsey Sound, including two juveniles and a marked individual (triangular nick out of the trailing edge of the dorsal), also a few porps off Penllechwen.
I have ccd: Ben and Andre so as they can get the address for the blog because they are keen bloggers, their off down to Martins Haven tomorrow, hoping for better conditions then when I took them there last Thursday (very misty), however we did see a couple of Porpoise there.
These guys would be great company on a ferry crossing, they are keen and good spotters.
cheers
Malcolm

Yep Malcolm thanks for this, lets hope for some more decent weatherand more opportunities to get out on the ferry!

Whale in Wales biggest and busiest port?

I have just had a report in from Andy Lloyd at the South Hook LNG Terminal via Aethne Cook of CCW, of what Andy Believes to be a Minke Whale making its way up into the Milford Haven.

I have informed Rod Penrose of the Welsh Marine Mammal Strandings Agency (tel 01239 682405) as it seems possible the animal is lost and disorientated and may end up stranding somewhere. If anyone sees it please contact either Rod (01239 682405) or myself (if you can't get Rod) (01348 875639)