Monday 11 January 2021

End of Year Round up Part 4.

So we were, (we thought!) beginning to get back to normal or new normal, with face masks and social distancing. Ken was certainly on the ball contributing his porp shots and adding to Holly's Fin ID catalogue ...



Mid month the weather deteriorated as it always seems to as the School holidays begin but towards the end of the month Common Dolphins were beginning to show again he also had a nice session where some old friends turned up!...


Strumble Diary 24/07/2020

With high tide late morning it was a reasonably early start. A light SW wind pushing the tide race along meant it was a relatively calm affair. The porpoise were distant at first and whilst the photo ops were OK I had to dig in when processing to get the detail out. The action lasted about an hour with porps showing on and off over that period. Two marked porpoise for the project, one being Denty who's been showing up quite a bit lately and the other possibly Jupiter or Biscuit with a distant showing but just close enough to see the two nicks in the dorsal fin.








August arrived with a bit more loosening of the regulations. 
We prepared the Ocean Lab for social distancing, sanitizing and on line bookings.
Lloyd and Brad began collecting for the aquarium as we had released all our fish!
At Strumble porpoises continued to show including marked individuals and
females with new born calves.

 

But the Common Dolphins vied with the porpoises for stars of the month!
60 or so followed their prey into Fishguard Harbour, putting on a show!
They were even visible from our Ocean Lab base!(seen in the background) 







Occasional Sunfish turned up for Ken at Strumble and more Commons!






Monday, 17 August 2020

Strumble Diary from Stevo!

 

Stephen Lucas

Attachments20:11 (2 hours ago)
to me
Monday 17th August

Joel and I went to. Strumble Head and we saw a large pod of. Common
Dolphins in front of a flock of seagulls and gannets altogether. The
time of sighting was 11:40am. The sea conditions was absolutely flat
calm. Perfect sea watching conditions.

P:S The Common Dolphins are still at. Strumble Head since last.
Thursday 13th when they got sighted.

allthingsgood
Stevo & Joel.
one of Stevo's images of a common Dolphin!


Monday, 31 August 2020

Strumble Diary 30/08/2020

 

When I arrived at the lookout I could see some splashes and lots of gannets out to the NE about a mile or so. Getting the Binos on them I could see there were a good number of common dolphin under twenty or so gannets. They were feeding well and remained there for fifteen minutes or so before charging off in a westerly direction crossing my view. I have tried to capture some of them on video to give you an idea of the scene but this is only about 40% of what I estimated to be 60-80 animals. 

Later it was the turn of the porpoise and as the tide increased a good number came in giving us a reasonable show although some remained distant. I'd estimate some 40 or so animals passed through over the three hours of action. A little excitement during the session as a group of very distant Rissos (4-5miles out) were really going for it with several breaches resulting in very large splashes easily visible in the excellent viewing conditions.


And as the summer slipped away into Autumn The Risso's began to show again! along with more commons and porpoises and sunfish!







Where else but Strumble? Oh yes and then there are seals...
so common we hardly mention them!


Septembers Risso's kept on coming!


                                                     Some Risso action from today's session.


I arrived shortly after 10am an hour after high water in readiness for the dropping tide. Visiting birder Gabriel was seated outside the lookout and informed me I was just in time as there were four or five Rissos just off to the NE. So getting the kit set up quick smart was the priority. That done and Leo secured I had the lens on them and thought they were swimming away. Thankfully they turned and came back passed the lookout giving a lovely show as they did. Eight in total, three very young ones, two juvenile size and three adults. Shortly afterwards I spotted a Bottlenose making it's way very stealthily through the tide race and off to the west. About twenty minutes after that Cliff arrived and we set about scanning the sea for any signs of cetaceans. Over the next couple of hours we sighted at least four groups of Rissos with an estimated total of 30-40 animals plus the eight confirmed from earlier. The porpoise count for the day was 30-40 but today it's all about the Rissos. I hope you enjoy the video above 

Sea Trust volunteers and our cetaceans were out there come wind and storm!



Strumble Diary Team Sea Trust bag 3 of the big five!


Ken was first on station at 0900 I arrived at 1030, Ken already had scored with Risso's and I had scored an hour later with common Dolphins, I will leave Ken to  enlarge on what was a lovely way to add pics and words . Holly came along on her day off with volunteers Mair and Hannah who also connected with Risso's and porpoises, a just reward!

AS autumn turned towards Winter we were still out there!!!

  









  




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