Friday 8 January 2021

End of Year Round up part 2.

 Nobody at the start of the Pandemic could have foreseen the scale or gravity of what was befalling us. Here in Pembrokeshire with very few cases, it seemed a bit of a phony war something that would somehow blow over and in a few months we would get back to near normal.

And so we went into lock-down, The Pembrokeshire Coast Path was declared out of bounds and only essential travel for food etc was permitted.Thankfully the weather was kind and those of us lucky enough to have gardens could at least enjoy the sunshine outdoors.March April and May passed by without being able to visit Strumble so near and yet so far....And then at last in June, restrictions were eased  Fran and I managed to get out to the outer breakwater of Fishguard Harbour and joy of Joys our bottles were there to greet us!

 



And in the meantime Adrian Rogers who was living in view of Strumble 
.had been using his telescope to good purpose and sent in this report:.."Sea watching at 8.50 p.m Sunday 30th May.. Had a report earlier of a sighting of 5 Risso's about a mile east of Strumble from the Warden. Have just had at least 3 moving slowly West"

Some friends who lived within walking distance also sent in a report:

Hi Cliff

Tuesday 2nd June 19:50 to 20:20

Two groups of Risso’s, 4 or 5 (in each group) very close in under the Strumble lookout. So close in fact we could hear them blowing from where we stood in the car parking area as they surfaced.

We managed to watch them for half an hour as they moved in an Easterly direction. Several breaches later they disappeared  from view approximately a mile off mackerel rock at a point  taking a bearing from mackerel rock to Cardigan island. No sign of them after that

See you soon


 The National Park was still nominally closed but a few days later it reopened and our Sea Trust Surveys could resume... With a Bang!


Ken & Holly's Whale of a Day

Hi all you cetacean lovers out there. It's so good to be back after the total shut down of the entire coast path. We are operating in a much limited capacity at present but grateful that at least we can start harvesting the valuable data which is the mainstay of the ID project.

Things were very quiet at first and as is usual this time of year porpoise numbers can be below average and indeed we spent the first two hours or so being entertained by the Oystercatchers Gannets and Gulls the latter of which were feeding on a bait ball that had formed in front of the lookout. At least it gave a good opportunity to get shots of Gannets in missile mode as they entered the water as the feed progressed.


Later on as the tide race was well underway we spotted two porpoise coming in from the NW. Very brief sightings but at least they were there. Over the next half hour or so several more animals were spotted but at a distance. Apologies for the quality of images but with very little contrast detail on the water, and the haze, conditions for the cameras were very challenging.





Sometime later and almost simultaneously Holly and I spotted something very large out on the inner boundary of the tide race. At first I thought it was a Basking Shark but as it turned side on and surfaced it became obvious it was a Minke Whale. Even an animal that size can be hard to spot and it’s surprising how frustrating it can be when there’s two of you there and one can see it and the other can’t. That’s the way it was with Holly shooting away and me trying desperately to get the lens on it. Eventually I did after many amusing  jibes from Holly and we followed it as it moved Eastward beyond mackerel point. With quite long periods between sightings our eyes were trained on the general area of the last sighting. I spotted it and started shooting as Holly exclaimed “Yes I’ve got it too". But as I stopped shooting when it had gone down Holly was still shooting. Puzzled I asked where she was looking and it turned out there was a second smaller Minke some 3-400mtrs behind the other animal. Seemingly we had a mother and calf/juvenile on our patch.







Shot by Holly of smaller juvenile


To see one is unusual as most years we don’t see any but to have two together was a rare treat and a real tonic as we get back into some semblance of normality.  Stay well folks and keep popping in as we hope to be bringing you more regular postings over the coming weeks.

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