Friday 31 August 2012

Fishguard latest

News from Steve Berry, of the mother, calf and another bottle of Pen Anglas this afternoon and then a text from Lloyd , who caught them passing by the beach on the opposite side of the bay at Pwllgwealod at dusk this evening! great to get all this info and keep a track on them! We are starting the Dolphin-Othon aboard the Stena Europe tommorow, as well as working on the Bangor University Survey vessel Prince Madog, so busy, busy, busy! might take a while to get postings up but will try and keep up to date! allthingsgood, walrus

Thursday 30 August 2012

Musselwick Porp

From Ed Makin - Wonderful moment on Tuesday morning at low tide on musselwick beach, when a harbour porpoise, around 1.5m long, cruised happily between the waves around 15 metres off the beach.

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Catch up

Mother and calf Bottlenoses cb.


The appaling summer of 2012 continues but we are still getting some sightings. Sunfish are annual visitors late summer/Autumn and despite a choppy sea Maria and Jon Scones spotted one and a porpoise off the outer breakwater at Fishguard Harbour last Friday. Katherine Davis and the rest of the Jemmima Rowing club spotted several Bottles off Fishguard Harbour entrance on Saturday morning includiung a mother and calf probably the samer pod as we have encountered there in recent months.



Richard Stonier continues to spot stuff during his epic ten or twelve hour seawatches at Strumble and along with Adrian Rodgers, report that large numbers of porpoises continue to show well at Strumble. Occasionally they come in close but you really need to use binoculars to get a decent view. Its worth having a look at the previous video clips to show what you are looking for if not experienced at porp spotting!

Saturday 25 August 2012

Porp stuff





below: porpoise mother and calf off Srtrumble cb.










The lousy weather continues and Mondays " Celtic Wildcat" trip is cancelled.



On Thursday Cristina and the Walrus trekked over to Point Anglas south of Fishguard Harbour and I filmed this mother and calf porpoises from the cliff top. (see video...)



We also found a young seal and its mother at Strumble in fact there were two mothers and calves both calves only a day or two old. The male beachmaster which is a huge pinkish grey animal has ruled the roost there for many years and was in attendance as well. This year the pups are quite early sometimes they dont really get started until September at Strumble. Incredible to thinhk that in a couple of weeeks these pups will have moulted out of their white coats be abandoned by their mothers and start their new lives independantly. Porpoises have been showing nicely over the last few days at strumble but you will need binoculars to see them.
http://strumbleheadseawatching.blogspot.co.uk/



From Richard Stonier at Strumble yesterday"Common Porpoise - showing exceptionally well for most of day. Estimate at least 100 animals.


Thursday 23rd August




Chris and I went to Mwnt at 1pm we started on the headland and.

We saw a group of 13 or more Bottlenose dolphins with including 3 or 4 calves.

came in giving great views right in front of us to the head of Mwnt

and they were milling around in front of us.

At 13:30pm for about 15 minutes more.

Bottlenose Dolphins arrived at 13:45pm.

We started to see 7 bottlenose dolphins at that time

before we left the headland it was quite a downpour

of rain and then we abandoned the watch and we got very

wet wet wet when we went to the car at the car-park

Cheers

Stevo

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Skomer - Sunfish and seal interactions




Saw this in North Haven yesterday......Seal kept coming to the surface with a Sun Fish. Kept diving down for 3 or 4 minutes and surfacing again. Not sure on the final outcome......a tasty snack?


Anybody else seen this?
Chris 
Skomer Warden
Hi Chris , I have seen grey seals eating a  umber of different fish species (Conger , wrasse , pollack, ray)
as well as octopus and... really quite harrowiung at the time, a baby porpoise. This is probably just another indication of how opportunistic they are but the first record I know of! well done! 

Sunday 19 August 2012

Stunning Strumble Weekend.

There can't be many places in the UK where you can sit and have such an incredible weekend of marine wildlife watching. Richard Stonier and Chris Grayell had an epic session yesterday and I joined Richard today for an 11 hour stint that takes some beating the list below gives the numbers but if the birds went quiet the Cetaceans came along and in between seals popped up and chough flew by. They are often quite distant at strumble but conditions were flat calm . Some of trhe Risso's and Common Dolphins were two or three miles out and required a telescope to "dig " them out but we had some really fascinating views of these animals acting perfectly naturally. All four species of cetacean seen over the weekend had small calves acompanying them so its also a good sign in terms of their viability. Its late and I am knackered so I will just cut and paste from Richards posting on Adrian Rogers excellent blog:

http://strumbleheadseawatching.blogspot.co.uk/
Saturday...
(Sunfish - 2 Seal eating an Auk surrounded by inquisitive ManxiesCommon Dolphin - 2 pods (10 and 25) Bottlenose Dolphin - 1 pod (12) (The 10 Common Dolphin swam East very close inshore and 15 mins later the Bottlenose came out of the bay, mingled for a while then went back where they came from. The 25 Common Dolphin were more distant in the bay Common Porpoise - Showing well

Sunday
Sunfish - 4
Common Dolphin - 3 pods (c.20, c.8 and c.5)
Risso's Dolphin - 3 pods (c.12, c.12 and c.6 . The Sunfish were very active and seen to leap a number of times)

Thursday 16 August 2012

Porp's there and here!

Thursday 16th August
Dad and I went to Mwnt at 1pm but nothing to report on Bottlenose Dolphins during our 2 hour watch.
There was something we have not often seen at Mwnt before. Whilst walking around Mwnt Head at about 15:05pm at the end of our watch, a single Harbour Porpoise was milling around seeminglyforaging at the time.
We watched it for about 5 minutes then it started swimming off eastwards up the coast and we continued walking back to our car at the car-park.!

Cheers Stevo
Well spotted Stevo! we also saw some porpoises off Pen Anglas this afternoon under about fifteen gannets. It was a long way away and pretty choppy so we just got odd glimpses of at least three at one time. There was also some tail slapping going on making quite big splashes!

Port Eynon 14th Aug...






We recieved this and some other photo's from Richard Youle of the South Wales Evening Post this morning asking for help with ID etc (Common Dolphins) taken by reader , Paul Lear (nice Pic's Paul!):


These are some photographs I took of dolphins in Port Eynon bay yesterday afternoon when I was fishing ( No fish to be found, needless to say)

Paul Lear

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Porpoise and Sharks!

Over the past couple of days the porpoises have been putting up a great display at Strumble under a cloud of around 100 gannets! Anyone wanting to see them well will need binoculars although Adrian Roger tells me they were really close in yesterday.

Whilst we were out with Nick on the Celtic Wildcat last week he told us of a breaching Thresher Shark which he unfortunately failed to get a pic' of. Nick also regularly fishes for sharks, and anglers had caught both Blue and Porbeagle during the day (which are caught, tagged and released alive).

A couple of days later , Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Group based In Newquay (Ceradigion) had an all day trip out into Cardigan Bay and along with both Common and Bottlenose dolphins they saw another or perhaps the same Thresher Shark. This time Sarah Bebb was quick on the draw! Thanks for the link Michael
See....
Thought u might like to see this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42275318@N03/7773224284/in/pool-chanonry_village/

Michael Rich

Monday 13 August 2012

Stevo and Chris at Mwnt

Thursday 9th August
Chris and I went to Mwnt at 1pm at about half and hour later a sighting of a single Bottlenose Dolphin milling about in the area for 15 minutes
and then it was still there at 13:45pm.
A mother and calf pair was sighted at 14:15pm for another 15 minutes.
They were traveling very slowly heading eastwards that was at 14:30pm.
We still saw them at that time heading out of view as we departed from the headland at Mwnt

P:S well done Christina and Sea Trust gang for seeing so many interesting stuff in the St George's Channel from the Stena Survey
I think we are getting a lot of mackerel shoals out there with so many Cetaceans in their peak period
Cheers
Stevo

Saturday 11 August 2012

Amroth Porps + Ians Porp's and Sunfish

From John Ramm - A pair of porposies were visible from the promenade across from the 'Amroth Arms' pub. They stayed for about 15 minutes.

A late report (my fault sorry Ian), of four Porpoises seen by Ian and son Robert whilst fishing off the rocks near the Copper Mine in Ramsay Sound on Thursday Evening. Apparently two were feeding under Gannets whilst the others were some ways apart.
Just goes to show , wetting your throat or wetting a line, porpoises can pop up anywhere on the Pembrokeshire Coast!
Having just spoken to Ian, he and his wife Sylvia also had a porpoise mother and calf from his boat on Friday Morning a couple of miles north of Fishguard Harbour. A couple of small sunfish also turned up.

For those wanting to see Sunfish its a good time as they arrive here in numbers in August into September. Their presence is usually given away by a long flipper like Dorsal fin flapping above the surface. This often attracts gulls coming to feed on parasites on its body. The fish is really quite an oddity disc shaped with a flipper like dorsal and anal fins top and bottom which are its main means of propulsion. The tail is a vestigal frill at the rear which is hardly noticable unless you get a good look. The body and head are pretty much incorporated into the afore mentioned disc darker above silvery below. This can be seen well when they lie flat on the surface along with the prominent eye mouth and pectoral fin.
Strumble is a good place to see them but you will need binoculars and a lot of patience!the video below is of a small one seen from the Celtic Wildcat last week...



Celtic Wildcat in the Celtic Deep!

Our Aug 10th Wildcat Survey just managed to catch the remains of the high pressure system that hovered fleetingly over the Irish Sea at the end of the week . It was sunny and as we left the shelter of the haven we got off to a good start with three porpoises. Although it got a bit choppy further out it was still worth heading way out to the Celtic Deep in search of Fin Whales.
Unfortunately we did not connect but had several excellent Common Dolphin encounters. A couple of the larger pods (35-40 ) had very small calves which came in to bowride us. Are the Fin Whales here this year? lets hope we get another chance to find out! We did mange to connect with A Minke Whale , (perhaps two ) which gave brief views, as did a Blue Shark.
A small Ocean Sunfish also flip-flapped past us, a first for several of our crew. They are one of my favourite seacritters and although not particularly rare they can be elusive, so nice to get one for our passengers
As usual at this time of the year the Gannetry on Grassholm was awe inspiring and several basking seals were a nice finish to an exhilerating trip in which we covered just under 100 miles of ocean! Click on the Dolphin for more pics from the trip. Thanks again to Nick o' Sullivan, Celtic Wildcat Skipper for getting us all safely out there and back!




Friday 10 August 2012

Risso's Dolphins

On Thursday the Mid Pembs and Bird Groups of the Wildlife Trust went out on the Celtic Wildcat for a Seabird Pelagic. There were excellent views of a pod of Risso's Dolphins between Grassholm and The Smalls in flat calm seas. Several Common Dolphins were also seen. Great photo from Annie Haycock.

Grassholm

Couple of days work on Grassholm produced the following: 8/8 - pod of 10 common dolphins on way out (included a few calves). 10+ porpoise seen off the west coast of the island on both 8/8 and 9/8. Minke whale off west coast on 8/8. 3-5 Risso's on way back on 9/8. Reports today from 1000 Islands of 2 Minke whale, a few Rissos and good numbers of Commons out that way.

Thursday 9 August 2012

Birds' Rock, New Quay

With a 0 sea state and maximum visibility it was a near-perfect day for dolphin watching but not so good for the yachts preparing for the New Quay regatta.

Arriving at the look-out, I could immediately see a huge, feeding event with diving gannets, gulls and what I took to be Storm Petrels. My first thought when I saw these birds was that they were House Martins - but they were dipping under the surface and then sitting on the water. It was impossible for me to even guess how many there were. A couple of other observers and I just thought "thousands". This feeding event, or series of events stretched over a distance of at least a mile. Bottlenose dolphins were well in evidence, lazily feeding under this enormous number of birds.

Over the following two hours over a dozen dolphins showed, with some breaching. They were not shy and approached several boats. At about 14.00 I noticed an unusual shape in the water and then realised that it was a Bottlenose "spyhopping". The first time that I have observed this behaviour.

A Proliferation of Porpoises

With the weather set fair for a Ferry survey five of us set of from Fishguard aboard the Stena Europe on Wednesday afternoon hoping for great things. The conditions were indeed perfect with a flat calm sea and an overcast sky to cut down the glare. Porpoises appeared soon after leaving the harbour and our total for the afternoon was 35 with most of them seen on the Welsh side of the crossing. A distant group of 20 Common Dolphins was added to the tally on the approach to Tusker Rock on the Irish side and 3 Rissos Dolphins also but in brief appearances. Rafts of Manx Shearwaters had been seen all the way  across and Rosslare Bay was full of birds with huge numbers of Manx Shearwaters and plenty of Gannets. With 10 minutes to go a Minke Whale surfaced briefly just once amidst the birds to provide a great ending to the outward leg.

This morning the conditions were even better with a glassy sea and some cloud cover for most of the trip. The visibilty was terrific with the Welsh coastline in sight soon after leaving Rosslare. 10 Rissos were seen on this leg, one of them sneaking up behind and showing well - a large, very pale individual - as it crossed astern the ferry.  Somewhat disappointingly, given the perfect conditions, no Common Dolphins were seen but this was more than made up for by the number of Porpoises. The morning total was 83 (yes, eighty three!) individuals with the majority again seen on the Welsh side. I guess this just goes to show how common Porpoises are in the Irish Sea and Pembrokeshire waters but they are only seen in their true numbers when the conditions are just right.
Porpoise photo from last week's Wildcat trip.

Friday 3 August 2012

Fishguard outer breakwater today



Over the past couple of days both Bottlenose dolphins and Porpoises have been seen in Fishguard Bay. Yesterday thanks to Paul Welsh I arrived with Rich crossen to see at least seven dolphins .

They were a mother and well grown/yearling calf , another possible mother and calf pair and at least three other adults . interestingly they were in those three units all seemingly seperate and avoiding contact in a slightly nervous way it seemed. Usually when they arrive here we have a loose group of around a dozen who generally interact to some degree.

This morning I saw only the mother and yearling type calf and they were acting really spookily.. I have seen no reason to explain their shy/antisocial behaviour but something seems a bit odd. As usual always more questions than answers!



Skomer - Risso's!

3 Risso's Dolphin seen off Pigstone Bay yesterday (2nd August) at 1300hrs. Seen in front of Grassholm travelling south. One possibly a juvenile.

Seen by Dave and Emily Astins.

Saundersfoot Porpoise

From Jeremy Moore - A porpoise and calf close in on the north side of Monkstone Point (Saundersfoot) yesterday morning.

Thursday 2 August 2012

Rod's the man!

I got an email from the Wildlife Trust ....We have been informed this morning that there is a dead Dolphin on the beach at Wallog near the Lime Kiln, the information came from a lady who lives nearby. Her name is Miss Glasier.

I spoke to Miss Glasier to find out where she was (near Aberystwyth) and then passed her on to Rod Penrose Welsh Marine Mammal Stranding coordinatore.

Just had a message from Rod, apparently it was a female Common Dolphin, unusual that far north into Cardigan Bay for Stranded or dead animals Rod's the man
:Marine Strandings Network

Fishguard Bottles Again



There was a treat in store for me on a visit up to Fishguard to see Cliff Benson on Sea Trust business this morning. As I arrived Cliff told me that he had heard from a local fisherman (Paul Welsh) of several dolphins near the harbour entrance. We hot-footed it to the outer breakwater and saw 5 individuals altogether. 3 of them stayed some way out but a mother and calf spent an hour or so close in to the end of the breakwater clearly fishing as the tide started to ebb. As shown in the pics the mother had a disinctive chunk out of the rear of the dorsal fin - an animal which Cliff has photographed at Fishguard before.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

From Nick o'Sullivan (Celtic Wildcat)

Hi Richard,

I was reading a post for Monday 30th July by Adrian who saw a dolphin with a badly damaged dorsil fin. I have also seen that dolphin ( or one very similar) out at the Smalls Light area ( about 10th July, it was only a fleeting site as it and about six others were on a mission heading south west.
CheersNick

Newquay not bad either! (from Facebook)

Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre (CBMWC)
We saw 19 dolphins from the harbour wall yesterday, including a mother with its calf. We also saw an Atlantic grey seal that came right up tp the harbour wall!