Strumble Diary 12/09/2018

Three of the big five today at Strumble. I arrived just before 9am an hour short of high tide to find two birders in the lookout. The report was of distant commons and three Rissos an hour earlier. I was miffed that I'd missed the Rissos but hopeful to see them on the dropping tide. A couple of porps left after the flood tide were milling about a half mile out to the north but it went quiet then over slack water until we spotted the Commons way off to the NNE but too far for photos. As the ebb started Holly and the team arrived for their survey and we all set about recording the many porpoise that were now moving in. Although the numbers were good the very strong spring tide was preventing them from reaching the lookout and they were mostly showing just to the west. As I was scanning through the lens the unmistakable fins of the three Rissos came into sight. At this point I broke the golden rule of taking my eye off them as I described to Holly where they were "Oh yes" she said as she started shooting away but try as I might I couldn't find them again until they were well passed, so only record shots this time. On a plus note though we did capture Droopy, one of our more easily identifyable porpoise with it's bent over fin (see last two images) which sort of made up for my Rissos faux pas.

I love that Strumble is really producing world class cetacean watching at the moment. Its probably the best place to see a porpoise anywhere in the world. We have an "Adopt a Porpoise scheme which will help to pay some of the costs of our Porpoise survey work. As yet droopy is not adopted!If you would like to adopt a Strumble Porpoise get in touch with Holly (holly@seatrust.org.uk).