Strumble Diary 17/09/2020 Flying Commons Steal The day

A beautiful morning in contrast to yesterday's gloom but tempered by a keen easterly breeze holding back the temperature. Three types of cetacean today so I'll deal with each in turn. The most important and first is our porps. The tide race was yet to form as I arrived but there were one or two still around after the earlier flood tide. They moved off and there was a wait then until the ebb flow started to pick up. Big tides today so I wasn't expecting the big numbers of the past week and so it turned out. The tide race build up was rapid and strong with most of the porpoise feeding well out away from the strongest flow. One or two ventured a bit closer and I eagerly captured them as they surfaced briefly. From the few I did capture two were marked animals which I always like to see especially if they are returners for the ID project. 

Later in the session I spotted two Rissos dolphins out to the north moving toward the west. They teased us with just fin tips showing most of the time but I did manage to get some reasonable shots.

Now for today's high flyers. Porpoise moved west beyond the lighthouse, rissos gone west and nearly an hour of staring at clean blue water left me feeling it must surely be time to think of going home for lunch. "I'll give it ten more minutes" I thought, and so glad I did. Off to the NE at some 4-500mtrs were a group of common dolphin making their way out to the NW just close enough for some shots. I followed them through the lens for a few minutes as they sped outward with a few breaches and lots of splashes as the went. Done job I thought. Three different cetaceans in one session is a good result in anyones book. 

I decided to take a look at the images on the screen at the back of the camera and after going through them looked up to see a second pod coming from the same direction but this lot were on steroids. Very surface active and really motoring along. I got on them and rattled off as many shots as I could before they too disappeared out of sight. You never know how each session is going to turn out but this one was a belter, but the true pleasure is to be able to share my Strumble escapades with you all.  ENJOY!!