Strumble Diary 15/11/2024

 The tides have cycled around so now the dropping tide runs through the mornings, so it was an early start to hopefully get the best of it. I arrived at 08.15 two hours into the tide and straight away I could see commons accross a very wide area in front of me. Although they were distant at least to start with. As the disturbance built off Mackerel Point the porpoise started to come in. From then until I left at 12.00pm they were busy foraging in the tide race and beyond. The commons came closer with a few small groups moving through throughout the morning. There were three porpoise in particular that stuck around being occasionally joined by other porps. This was a mother and calf with one other which also happened to be a marked animal I've seen a few times before. A very productive session photo wise with close to 700 images taken and thinned down to 81 with a selection shown below.

Strumble Diary 13/11/2024

 I was later going out today and joined the survey team for the last thirty minutes of their two hour watch. They had seen a couple of porpoise and a small but distant pod of commons off to the NW which had been there most of the morning. After the team left I got set into my watch and those commons sarted moving a bit closer affording me a few shots before they moved NE into Cardigan Bay. 

The tide race picked up and several porpoise moved in to feed, some showing well and some not so. One distinctly marked animal for the ID project and it's surprising that nearly nine years in and we're still recording animals we've not seen before. Just goes to show how mobile these little porps are around our coasts.

Strumble Diary 10/11/2024

 At last some broken cloud and sunshine, sadly it didn't last but we made the most of it while it was there, we being myself , my brother, Harry and Carrie who both arrived a little later. First sighting of the day were several Commons bow riding the survey boat "Severn Guardian" as it passed by. Throughout the morning we had mixed sightings of Commons and porpoise as each seemed to take turns moving through the tide race against the flow. Harry's keen eye spotted the catch of the day though, a single male Eider Duck passing east to west. The cloud moved back in and thickened bringing rain so we called it a day around 12.30ish and headed home.