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
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.