Tuesday 26 February 2013

Strumble diary yawn..plenty of Porpoises - WOW!!! Malcolm hits the Jackpot!!!



A dry but blustery day  from the east today. Our first porpoise watch was on the outer breakwater , the sea was choppy and we were expecting nothing, but amazingly we had a nice 15 minutes watching several porpoises (best guess 5 + 1 small  calf )  several of which showed well but intermittently, dissapearing into nowhere at the end!
At Strumble this morning we could find no porpoises to begin with but as the tides were quite big I guessed they may have moved west behind the lighthouse, a bit quicker than I thought. We moved around to the other car park and lo and behold, several porpoises showing with three or four gannets . Most of the view was obscured by the islands but none the less there were at least a dozen showing in the gap on and off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztmbm4d95qE


This may not look like the best porpoise  photo in the world but actually it is! Why? because Malcolm has captured evidence that I believe proves that a single identifiable porpoise has returned to the same place at the same time since it was first photographed four years ago!!!! (see archive Feb 2010)   In my estimation one of the most important pieces of evidence ever produced on porpoises in British waters, Bang on Malcolm!!!

Hi Cliff,


well we have been out with the big eyes at St Davids Head they are great,

but guess what?

the best action has been near shore

As we were finishing today a few porps showed close to the head,

I went down to the end of the head with my camera,

a couple of porpoise not 30ft away, excellent,

I got the shot of 'little nics' (if you blow it up you can see two small nics on the trailing edge) nice,

so of course when I got home I uploaded my photo's of the last days,

I always look through even the bad ones just in case,

AND LOOK the other attached photo,

I believe this could well be 'split fin' 2013!!!!

cheers

M