Cardigan Bays Bottlenose Dolphins seen returning from their winter holidays?

 

 Archive pic's from Ken Barnett ©: These are some of the ones that passed Strumble March 2019.

For some years now large pods of Bottlenose Dolphins has been seen passing Strumble Head at this time of the year heading North into Cardigan Bay Sea Trust has been lucky enough to have enough local volunteers to be able to observe and record cetaceans throughout the year.  On Monday 28th Feb. Andy Wise a Sea Trust volunteer, watching from Strumble Head caught a pod of 40+ heading for Cardigan Bay. Given the weather it was amazing he saw anything but it seems a pattern is emerging. 

"It was really exciting & I so could have missed them....they just cruised slowly past & were gone after 10 minutes. I was assuming they were commons of course but when I got them in the scope I knew they were bnds....& 2 of them  I could ID from the New Quay pod".

Historically very little survey work has been done in Cardigan Bay in the winter months, so it’s difficult to know how many of the resident Bottlenose Dolphins are entirely resident through the winter months. If Andy is right about the two he recognised, it would throw a whole new light on the residential nature of the Cardigan Bay Bottles.

This time last year, Fiona Day who at the time was based at Dale Fort, reported a large pod of Bottlenose Dolphins feeding in Dale Bay at the mouth of the Haven. It is a known fact that there is a run of spawning Herring that breed in the Ceddau and it may be that Fiona's Dolphins had arrived to feed on them from Cardigan bay or perhaps they were on a refuelling stop on the way back from further afield. 

If this was a regular event at this time of the year in the Haven I am pretty sure someone else would have noticed them and let us know. The fact is even with the kind of coverage we give at Strumble and other observers around Pembrokeshire, Like Andy says it would be so easy to miss them. 

Its a fascinating subject and deserves more investigation if we are to understand and protect the Cardigan Bay dolphins wherever they roam in our waters.