Fran and the walrus spent a sunny afternoon on a dropping tide at Strumble with Ken, hoping for some porpoise action. It was a long time coming, and again frustrating "splash and dash" views as the porpoises were feeding quite a long way out in a choppy tide race. Interestingly they were joined for a short time by a small pod of Common Dolphins, which happily seemed to get on OK with their smaller cousins.
However, this is not the case with Bottlenose dolphins as we received this report from Greg Ellis...
Morning, I did a Dolphin and Porpoise watch @ Mwnt yesterday evening (12/06)17.00 to 19.00 hrs as part of the Ceredigion SAC monitoring and I believe I watched another group of bottlenose attacking a porpoise. It happened about half a mile out towards Cardigan Island. Huge amount of activity splashing, chasing etc then what I believe to be a porpoise physically tossed out of the water. Tried to get pics but failed
Thanks! Greg, as you are aware it is not that unusual for Bottlenose Dolphins to kill Porpoises, although nobody is sure why, Some people think it's the equivalent of teenage bover boys, some think it's one predator getting rid of a potential competitor. Either way, it's not what people expect of smiley cuddly Dolphins, Of course,' they are big potentially dangerous predators, although for some reason they seem to act in quite a friendly way toward humans.
Over the past couple of years, Common Dolphins seem to be visiting Cardigan Bay, it would be interesting to know if there are any similar interactions with the resident Bottlenose Dolphins!
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