Hi Cliff,
was out today as I often am, depite the weather.
Today was pretty good for a while,the calmer conditions made it easier to scan over a wider area, Porpoise were active in several groups in several areas North of the bitches well into flood tide, and also out to the North of the sound c15-20 animals?
Numbers had been down at times through November and December but conditions were often pretty grim, so was nice to get a better look today.
Last week I had a calf which was not one of the summer born ones, that is it was just too small! the majority of calves that I have seen grow up this summer are now juveniles and have to be pretty close to adults to clearly see size difference enough to call them calves still, anyway I reckon the one I saw a few days ago was no more than 2 or 3 months old, so definately not born in the summer months.
One thing that I still cant get is.. a clear day, good sea conditions and lots of sightings until.... gone, vanished!
how do they do that? sometimes I think my eyes are going to come right out of their sockets straining to see what was there just a few minutes before..
oh the joys,
another thing that got my attntion today was a group of twenty odd gannets out towards the Bishops and Clerks lots of auks and gulls but again even with eyes out their sockets! no cetaceans under them..
must catch up with you soon,
cheers
Malcolm
Yep Malcolm , its really amazing how cetaceans in general and porpoises in particular do their vanishing acts. I was watching a mother with a small calf in front of us at Strumble the other day and as you say they dissappeared without a trace even though I had a view about a mile wide around them. How could the calf hold its breath that long?
Interesting about the gannets, seem to be a lot more around this winter. Its something we sometimes see from the ferry most frustrating!
