Haven Cetcaceans

Despite a decent sea fog we had a decent day (sightings wise) whilst water sampling out of Milford this morning....Looming out of the mist were lots and lots of Puffins, a few Manx Shearwaters, Gannets and Razorbills all off Skokholm Island, followed by a few Common Dolphins lazily surfacing around the entrance to the Haven.... Mark Williams was heading out of the Haven bound for Cardiff aboard his new EA vessel 'Severn Guardian' and also reported Harbour Porpoise off the South Hook..... Newport to Cardigan run tomorrow which is often good for Bottlenose, but the weather is looking pretty poor /its all in the balance at the moment!

Images: Malcolm Baradell

On our return from Newtown we stopped off at Newquay briefy and saw a Bottlenose feeding off the Fish Factory which then headed out north.

I heard from Titch that the Common Dolphin in Fishguard Harbour had died overnight, it seems pretty sad that we have had two similar situations in the past few months and have been unable to do more. Thanks to all that kept us informed about this and also to Ian Hotchin for bottlenose reports.

On a happier note this from Malcolm Barradell:

Hi Cliff,

Porpoise showing well at Ramsey Sound recently including mothers with calfs (at least three).
cheers
M

Fishguard Harbour Common Dolphin

It seems my optimism for the dolphin was misplaced, Carys Hughes found it floundering around by the lifeboat pen last night. It was in deep water snd Fisherman Tich Rees tried to help but in the end there was little we could do, I have to go away today I have alerted Rod penrose but I think nature will have taken its course overnight...

Porpoises

Two adult Porpoises just off Priest's Nose, Manorbier at SS056972 this morning. The first I have seen here fo some time.

From Steve Berry!

Hi Cliff
More Bottles off the outer breakwater yesterday morning.2 adults and a calf,I did text you but your phone was probably in the washing machine.
all the best Steve

Update

Happily the Common Dolphin appears to have found its way back out of the harbour as we last saw it heading in that direction at about 11 am and have not seen it again since about 11.30

Fishguard Harbour latest...

Over the past few days bottlenose dolphins have been active around the mouth of Fishguard Harbour but this mornung Tony Lucas passed o0n a report of a dolphin wandering around the haqrbour "looking lost" I got there to find a common dolphin wandering aimlessly around near the Stena Ramp . We will keep the animal under observation , hopefully it will find its way out on its own...

Brian Garrett to me
Hi
I spent a couple nights in Fishguard from Tuesday 19th June to Thursday 21st June. Went to Strumble on the Tuesday and Wednesday and Porpoises were every where. Also on all three days I saw Bottle-nose Dolphins off the main breakwater in Fishguard. Difficult to be exact about numbers but probably 4+ including a youngster. It's a fantastic area and it must be the premier spot for Porpoise in the UK? Why so many in one area and yet in whole regions of our coastline you are lucky to see one or two Porpoise? Also with all the food which must be around Strumble Head why don't the Bottle-nosed Dolphins feed in the same area. When walking from Strumble to Fishguard I saw Porpoise easily for half of the walk and then the Bottle-nosed Dolphins appear to predominate from there onwards up the coast past Newquay etc? I'm not very familiar with the coast from there on. Are there a lot of Porpoises along that coast?
Thanks

Hi Brian its been a busy week and just catching up.

Yep as you say and as we have been trying to make clear for several years there are few places in Europe that have any better claim as the best porpoise location other then Strumble.

Politically? its been ignored by those who pretend to know things and produce atlases but fail to source our data which is freely available from the Local Records Office.

The Bottlenose situation in Cardigan Bay also has political conotations that we try and remain clear of , but what is extremely obvious from our observations in recent years is that Fishguard Bay/ Pen Anglas is the southern boundary for Bottlenose habitual activity. Its probably a habitat thing inasmuch Fishguard Bay is the first part of Cardigan bay to conform to the general characteristic of the area that they seem to prefer , eg. shallow shelving beaches with estuaries (large Small) that attract migrating fish which are vulnerable to their particular hunting methods.

Although only a couple of miles further south, the Sea bed and its characteristics alter significantly to the porpoises favour... to deeper rocky seabed, reefs , high energy tidal features (see "Porpoise Ponderings" earlier this month for some thoughts on the subject)

We caught up with the Fishguard Harbour bottles after our Ferry Survey (see one mother and calf photographed yesterday off the beakwater ) and from what little we could see , due to their extremely restrained behaviour it appeared thet there was definately one, possibly, two mothers with calves and I estimated at least four other animals within the group. Please see one oftr Mother and Calf photographed on Thursday from Fishguard Harbour above.

Thanks for your report Brian if you are in the area again it would be good to meet up, we will put you on our mail list, allthingsgood, cliff

Birds' Rock, New Quay
Up for my regular Thursday Dolphin Watch session; overcast but mild and a sea state 1.

 The previous "Watchers" hadn't seen anything of note, but the minute they left, the birds arrived. There were four separate feeding events just a hundred metres or so from the foot of the cliffs. In excess of 200 birds, including 20 - 30 Gannets, gulls, cormorants, guillemots and razor bills were either dip feeding or shallow diving. I could just make out the dark shadow of the bait ball under the water, but couldn't see any actual prey fish. The birds kept dispersing and re-forming as they followed the bait ball around. It wasn't too long before the dolphins appeared from the direction of New Quay but they didn't actually get as far as the feeding, perhaps finding other, larger fish where they were. Five Bottlenose including two young appeared to be foraging. Two of the trip boats appeared, from opposite directions and while they obviously pointed out the dolphins to their passengers, they both did the right thing, slowing down and not approaching.

Risso's at last !

I told Cliff that I would get an exclamation mark in if I wrote about the Risso's.
I have wanted to see this species ever since getting the cetacean "bug", and on Wednesday morning on board "Stena Europe" thanks to Cliff, there they were.
I know that the relative dimensions are very similar to Bottlenose, but these animals looked so much larger; to me at any rate they looked more like Pilot Whales or how I imagine Orcas to look (not seen those either). I suppose that it's to do with the size of the dorsal fin, anyway they really impressed me, especially the second pod that we saw because the white/grey of the backs was very evident. I was indeed a very happy bunny.

Common Dolphins - Ramsey Sound

image: Dee Doody

12 common dolphins in Ramsey Sound this morning including a small calf. One of the adults had a missing dorsal fin. The Gower Ranger skipper, Mike, tells me a pod seen last year in the Sound also included one with a missing dorsal fin. Same group perhaps?

Hi you two. thanks for this!

Over the years we have filmed /photographed thousands of Commons but only definately seen the same one again once, an individual we named "Crossbill", (see pic') which also had other scars that confirmed ID as well as the deformed beak. Missing dorsals are not so unusual but It does sound likely given the same behaviour that it could be the same animal!

Bristol Channel Survey.

Hi Cliff,

The met office got it wrong yet again on Tuesday. We did the survey in sea state 2/3. We could not go on the bows while heading west. There were lots of common dolphins out there in varying size groups but we failed to find any minke.

Steve

After the storm...

We started our second last minute ferry survey of the month yesterday with reasonable conditions about an hour after we cleared Strumble, where although there were lots of Gannets foraging about a mile to the south, the choppy conditions made sighting any porp's that would inevitably be below them impossible at that range.
With sea state two to three but lively after the weekends storms and a bright sun conditions were trying and despite some great spotting by Dave Cunnife and Cristina we finished the outward leg with only one small pod of Common Dolphins and a couple of Porpoises to show for our efforts.

Near as dammit the longest day and we relished our second bite of the evening return which I estimated would give us at least an hour of decent light. It did but our meagre reward was a single porpoise, despite the improving sea and lack of glare.

This morning looked pretty good as we awoke again in Rosslare and enjoyed a hearty breakfast. (Stena Line really do us proud!) Up on the bridge and Dave was really hoping for a Risso, a species still on his wanted list. Fair play! he found them himself, just past the Tusker latching on to a pod of five and soon after a second similar pod. A third followed and then after a hectic half hour things slowed right down but Dave was a very happy bunny. Cristina managed to find us what might have been the same small pod of commons we saw the previous day but with Sea state 1 verging on 0 we would have expected to see a lot more on the basis of last weeks bonanza. Porpoises began to feature about ten miles off Strumble with odd ones and twos every few minutes right until we passed Pen Anglas.

So two ferry surveys a mere week apart in similar mainly good conditions either side of a big storm. There were a good deal less sightings this week and much less bird life. Perhaps the plankton blooms were disrupted causing fish shoals to disperse and therefore also the birds and cetaceans?

One returning big cat was the Celtic Wildcat Heading for home at high speed after a couple of months in the frozen wastes of Ceredigion (Aberystwyth) Welcome home nick cant wait to get out with you next week . There are two spare seats for our trip on Saturday 30th of June due to a cancelation so get in touch with Rich on seatrustwales@gmail.com if you fancy a day out with us at a still very reasonable price of £60!

Porpoise ponderings

David Sayer 17 Jun (2 days ago)to me

Went to strumble head amazing, Saw many porpoise and gannets near lighthouse and observatory made my day and holiday
Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Andro

This and another somewhat briefer email From Rich Campbell yesterday, helps illustrate just what we have here in terms of porpoises that are easy to see by anyone visiting Strumble....

Over the years we have recorded large numbers of Porpoises at Strumble Head, aggregations of over a hundred animals on occasions which is far more than are seen anywhere else in the UK as far as we can ascertain.
Three slow scan counts yesterday from Strumble Lookout between 10 am and 11 am, resulted in 98, 112, and 87 and these are only the animals I could see on the surface. It would probably be reasonable to assume that for every animal on the surface there was at least one beneath.
Plenty of other seasoned and reliable observers such as Elfyn Pugh and Powell Strong have witnessed this "Porpoise Soup" (as Elfyn once referred to it) as well as old birding friends such as retired and much respected County Bird Recorders, Graham Rees and Jack Donovan to name just two.
Interestingly we do not get these kinds of numbers when passing Strumble on the ferry but there may be several reasons for this, including the fact that we are moving at around 20 MPH and that a vessel weighing around 30,000 tons must make a certain degree of disturbance.
Recent discussions with Phil Lees who has regularly been spotting porpoises between Strumble and St Davids Head suggests there may be some movement between the Ramsay Sound, Bishops and Clerks area and if this is so there is little reason why they should not move around the other Pembrokeshire Islands of Skomer and Skockholm as well in a much larger dynamic. The fact that we often see Porpoises from the ferry all the way from Fishguard to Rosslare also adds to my speculation that this incredibly hydrodynamic area might add a larger dimension to our perception of porpoise movement and activity around the SE tip of Ireland and the SW tip of Wales and the offshore and coastal features between, It would also explain the fluctuations in numbers that seem to periodically occur.

Berrys Bottles!

Either Steve Berry is spending a lot of time at Pen Anglas recently or he has some kind of psychic syncronisation with the bottles cos they seem to both turn up at the same time! I got two texts from him some time this afternoon I rarely have my mobile with me, its usually lost or in the washing machine.

Either way, I visited Udwig Birder this aft and he told me so I went to have a look off the breakwater. At first there seemed to be loads of Gannets but no dolphins but after a while I saw a mother and calf surface not too far from a RHIB which was hanging around for a diver whose float was sticking up on the surface near the dolphins. Soon after the RHIB motored over to the divers float and the mother and calf dissappeared.
The gannets moved further out and then I noticed four more Bottles two of which did some spectacular if distant breaching.

Maybe worth a look from Harbour village in the morning, any boat owners reading this, thinking of taking a look, please take care not to spook the dolphins or approach too close. Mothers and Calves are very vulnerable so do please keep an eye out for them and avoid harrassing them. Anyone who does so can be fined or even jailed!

It begins to kick off!

Another last minute Stena Europe Ferry Survey with Cristina Munilla , Stevo and Tony Lucas, juggling weather forecasts, managed to find us out in the St Georges Channel in near perfect conditions, expectations were high. I was hoping for our first Risso's of the year and maybe a repeat of last years Minke bonanza. Porpoises obliged from Pen Anglas onwards until about halfway out when a few of pods of Common Dolphins added to the tally, with more porpoises as we steamed through past the Tusker.

The long midsummer days afforded us a second bite of the cherry on the evening return from nine pm till almost ten, that brought several more porps some more commons and a Minke cruising past the Tusker Rock Lighthouse!

This morning found us back in Rosslare with perfect glassy overcast sea. Things started kicking off with several porps swiftly folowed by a distant loosely associated pod of Risso's which Cristina scoped and identified a couple of calves. The Isle of Inishmore ferry preceding us out of the harbour had probably dispersed them making them difficult to count but we settled for about eight adults and at least two calves. Back and bang on schedule!

More Porp's and three more Minke's two of which eventually gave great views having first been spotted at extreme (2 mile + disatance ) had me thinking things were probably too good to be true and about halfway back the wind got up with some rain dissapating the view and roughing the sea up. Closer to the Pembrokeshire shore, things calmed down and we managed a couple more porps, for a total of 67 porpoises with 83 commons, 10 Risso's and four Minke's, not bad for a total of around 7 hours of effort!

Via Stevo' Fishguard Bottles and Steve Berry

Sunday 10th June
A sighting by Tony and Lorraine Luxton are friends were looking out from their kitchenwindow and they saw 2 Bottlenose Dolphins and they were adults at the end of the.North Breakwater the time was 8:00 - 8:45am and they were playing and enjoying the sunshine . The sea condition was flat calm like a millpond Cheers, Stevo
I also had a text reporting three there from Steve Berry on Sunday . Unfortunately my phone was in the washiong machine! Have retrieved SIM so just got it!

Porpoise - Deer Park

From Gary - Went for stroll around the deer park yesterday. Good numbers of gannets fishing close in to the headland along with plenty of razorbills. Good view of a stonechat singing away in the sunshine. Couple of pairs of choughs. And a raven getting mobbed by them. The real treat though was 30 minutes spent watching a female porpoise and her calf cruising about fairly close in to the headland.

Pwllheli Coast

From Alan Gray of Shearwater Coastal cruises which operate from Pwllheli - Weather problems have been a huge factor in our programme so far this year.  Our last cruise was 4 June, but having completed just 14 cruises, we have only missed seeing bottlenose dolphins on one of them.  This was more than compensated for by our seeing an otter, out along the shore-line of one of our islands, in the middle of the afternoon.

We were joined on 4 June by around 20 bottlenose dolphins and the pic above shows a small juvenile with it's mother.

Strumble Gannet blizzard and porpoise bonanza!

Yesterday whilst meeting up with our WOW Seabird Monitoring course Students at Strumble, I was fortunate to see a real spectacle of over 100 gannets feeding over a large number (minimum of 50) porpoises. they were moving south with the tide but were a fantastic spectacle. Sadly they had moved on around the headland by the time the group arrived but we did get excellent views of a mother and small calf!

Stevo on Saturday!

Stevo, Tony and the Walrus helped out the RNLI on Saturday with a porpoise watch!

via facebook.

Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre (CBMWC)
Land and boat based sightings yesterday of 19 bottlenose dolphins seen foraging and leaping and two puffins, despite the misty conditions. Fabulous weather today and looking forward to sunny dolphin surveys. Sun screen at the ready.

Whales in the Bristol Channel via Steve Rosser!

Image:Sarah Allen.

A friend of mine fished the Stanley Bank a couple of miles north of Lundy today. He saw '2 small whales and 1 bigger one'. He is an excellent angler but has never seen whales before and has no real interest in identifying them. He then enjoyed a pod of dolphins bow riding, jumping etc. A pity the fishing was not as good as the cetaceans!!

We have got to get out there.

Steve.

Yep it would be nice but not today! The small Whales were presumably
Minke's, the larger one probably a fin or a Humpback , I wonder if he saw a blow? We need some settled weather to get to grips with all that blubber out there!

Bottles in Fishguard Harbour

A report from Steve , one of the RSPB group I took out yesterday of circa 6 Bottles seen around the enterance of Fishguard Harbour yesterday morning!

Aberystwyth Bottlenoses

Some nice images and information from Karen Burns - Having just read the post mentioning Aberystwyth, I thought I would give an update on the last ten days. Aberystwyth has been a busy place with the Halford's Tour Series Bike Race and the Olympic Torch being in town. The dolphins have been equally active and have been seen almost on a daily basis and put on several nice shows for the visitors, particularly while the bike race was on. Attached is a sequence of shots of a group of 3 dolphins who were part of a larger group of 8 or 9. They were a bit further out than I would have liked but the pictures illustrate how active they have been.
Thanks Karen!

Newquay Bottlenoses

Just back from a few days in Newquay, Ceredigion. On Tuesday on the way up we stopped in at Mwnt where 2 Bottlenoses were in close to the cliffs and way off, over by Cardigan Island, there was a group of 6 more. On to Newquay and in perfect, sunny, flat calm conditions there were.............no Bottlenoses to be seen. It seemed to me that, at present, they are favouring Newquay in the morning as the following day on Wednesday, we were down at the harbour wall at 7 a.m. and over the next 3 hours had some excellent views of Bottlenoses. Conditions were, again, flat calm with excellent visibility and there we saw at least 30 Dolphins though many were a long way out. Several did, however, come quite close in and one individual passed within 10 feet of the harbour wall, turning on it's side as it passed to show the white belly. There were many quite large Sand Eels close in though I would have thought that they would be after larger prey such as Mackerel. This animal stayed close in for some time and provided a nice shot of the tail as it dived. There was a fair bit of play between animals though they were a little out of range of even a long lens. One Dolphin slapped it's tail hard against a jellyfish floating on the surface, smashing it - see pic. In the afternoon the Dolphins seemed to have moved off again. They (6 or so) were back again the next morning although conditions were dull with a choppy sea making observation more difficult. Newquay is surely one of the best places in the UK to see Bottlenose Dolphins from the shore.

Porp's from Phil Lees..

Saw 4 porps off Porthgain last Monday 21st circa 6.30pm near the top off the flood tide. It was a calm sea, gentle breeze - biggest group I've seen there - seemed to be a adult and juv together and 2 other adults in a loose group feeding and moving slowly northwards.

I suppose the interesting thing about your sightings Phil, is that Porth gain is midway between Strumble and St Davids, the two places where Porpoises are seen in big numbers. This may suggest a certain amount of mobility indeed I would be surprised if here was not a certain amount of movement between the main feeding areas.