Sun Fish in Newport Bay.

 A great photo from Hannah Harries of a Sun Fish taken today in Newport Bay. The Tuesday survey team had also been informed of a sighting off Strumble this morning. Things it seems are are hotting up in the sea as well.

 

Strumble Diary 23/06/2026

 Well, today could have been an almost copycat of two days ago, as it was almost identical to what Cliff reported. I arrived around 12.30 with the Tuesday survey team an hour into their two hour survey. Conditions were dead calm with a light variable breeze and a very weak tide race as we're on neap tides at present. They had seen a couple of porpoise but nothing out of the ordinary. After they departed I stayed on for a further hour and a half with sporadic distant porpoise sightings way too far out in the haze for any images. Something larger caught my eye and sure enough due north at about two miles a Minke whale surfaced twice before submerging again. About seven minutes later it rose again and after that was not seen again. No images I'm afraid but a very enjoyable session in the shade of the lookout on this stunning but very hot day.

Strumble Diary 21/06/2026

 Report from Cliff Benson: 

"Went to Strumble this afternoon 2.30 to 4.30. Good numbers of porpoises (15-20) quite active including mother and calf, but star of the show was a distant Minke Whale that showed 4 times in succession, and then disappeared off the face of the earth 

Strumble Diary 20/06/2026

 A beautiful morning at Strumble today as I joined Cliff for a couple of hours on the rising tide.I was doing my usual Porpoise/Dolphin survey whilst Cliff was conducting a very interesting Gannet survey. Between cetacean sightings I helped Cliff with sightings. The idea was to identify 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th year/adult Gannets to see the numbers of juvenile/sub adult birds compared to mature adults. The results were quite interesting and could give an indication of their recovery after the bird flu epidemic. 

On the Cetacean front, there were several groups of Commons visible all through the survey with a count of 80-100 or so in total. Porpoise numbers were as expected with a total of ten sighted sporadically through the two hours of the survey. It's not often we see the Commons bow riding the in coming Ferry but today things fell into place and we got a good view of some real flyers enjoying the pressure wave on the bow as she passed Strumble. The Choughs are very active at the moment and a few dropped in below the lookout so I couldn't resist a shot or two.

 

17/06/26. Breakwater Bottles today!

The tide wasjust emptying out of Fishguard Harbour ,so Stevo and self decided to have a look to see if the bottles were around. A circling gannet gave the game away with what looked like 3/4 showing briefly off the campsite on the opposite side of the bay. The veteran Paddle steamer "The Waverly" decided to make its way into the harbour. Soon after the dolphins raced in to bow ride her for a moment before dissappearing in her wake. Not long after a single bottle'arrived just in front of us, about 100 metres away. It surfaced a few times getting closer before heading out towards the harbour enterence where i then spotted the first small group. . Sadly we had to go so not sure if it joined them or not. Later at Strumble we hung about for an hour but saw nothing cetacean wise although a couple of miles out tothe east there was several (20+) Gannets feeding although it was too far away a bit misty and gnarly to makeout if there wer porp'sor more likely Common Dolphins beneath them. Sadly no camera with us but heres a similar view of one i took some time ago...

Bit of a break but reports of Bottles in the bay!

Due to laptop problems for me and Ken tied up with house maintenence there has been a gap on the WinW reports , however Chris Pierpoint has been seeing Bottle s (5) off Penanglas and Ian Hotchin has been seeing them from his yacht in the bay!

Team Sea Trust: Bottles off the breakwater

Bottlenoses (Tursiops truncatus) photographed off the outer breakwater here in Goodwick last Wednesday by our Sea Trust team 🐬🌊 We believe that they are displaying potential mating behaviour here, with the below images highlighting playful, flirty courtship displays like chasing, repeated breaching and body-slamming, and rolling over each other and exposing their underbellies. To read more about cetacean mating morphology, behaviour and evolution: https://link.springer.com/.../10.1007/978-3-031-35651-3.pdf Keep an eye on our YouTube channel to see the video footage when we upload it later in the week: https://www.youtube.com/@SeaTrustWales SEE: #seatrustwales #marinemammals #cetaceans #pembrokeshire

Porpose from Greg Ellis!

Strumble Head 24/05/26 plenty of porpoise around, some very close in to shore. Two separate pods of Common Dolphins feeding about half a mile out. Gorgeous sunset to boot. Fron Greg on Pembrokeshire Porpoise ,whale and dolphin sightings sadly pics dont transfer!

Strumble Diary 21/05/2026

 At last a warm day and it was a treat to be at Strumble on such a great day. I've not been out so much of late as this May is a very busy one for me. I arrived for the dropping tide in the early afternoon and the first hour was quiet as I waited for the tide race to form. As the outer tide race got going 50-60 Commons moved in from the NW with well over a hundred Gannets above. Quite a feed going on with dashing dolphins and diving Gannets dodging the 100 or so Manx Sheerwater also joining the feast. This lasted well into the formation of the inner tide race but the Commons never came closer in. As the dolphins moved back west with the tide several porpoise moved up the inner tide race showing reasonably well as they sped along. This was in stark contrast to yesterday where the fiteen or so that I saw hardly showed at all and were very stealthy barely breaking surface and then only once before diving again. I checked for Bottlenose on my return to Goodwick but alas there were none there.

 

Strumble Diary, May 18th.

11.00-13.00 SW 3/4 but surprisingly sunny as all the way from Mathry to the Ocean Lab in Goodwick and then from O lab to within half a mile of Strumble we had steady drizzle. I joined Fran and Lucy for the Monday Sea Trust Porpoise Photo ID survey this morning. As we arrived at 11am a vertual swarm of around 100 House Martins flew past the lookout, heading west. Presumably migrants brought down by the nearby rain? Others passed in dribs and drabs with a few swallows throughout the watch. five or six swifts also passed by in the same direction and then a few more swallows that flew straight out northwards. From the start we had 60+ common Dolphins with a similar number of attendent feeding Gannets which eventually moved off to the west with the tide. Cetacean-wise it was pretty quiet for the second part of the watch with only a couple of porpoises sighted despite optimum tide conditions (HT 10am) Interestingly, given the massive loss of Gannets on Grassholm i looked for sub-adults, but could ony find three second summer birds. As we made our way back up to the car park at the end of the watch, at least eight Chough were feeding in the field behind the car park, some of which had yellow bills, marking them as juveniles. I did not see the bill colour of all of them, perhaps some crecheing going on?