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A Great Start to Sea Watch Foundation National Whale & Dolphin Watch 23 June 2008 Saturday 21 June, the first day of Whale & Dolphin Watch Week one two hour vessel based survey rewarded us with sightings of four harbour porpoise and a single minke whale. Sunday dawned with winds reaching speeds of 20 to 25 mph, beaufort force five. Direction east-north-east. Today we would be forced to limit our survey to land based sites. We received a huge response from locals and visitors all of were keen to assist with any land based watches organised. With thirty-two volunteers gathered at our new marine wildlife centre we decided to split into two groups with the first setting up a view point at Red Point and the second at Peterburn near Melvaig. Armed with binoculars, spotting scopes, ID guides and sightings forms we began recording at noon. The first sighting came in at 12:26, a group of 8 harbour porpoise just off shore at Peterburn. The gannets proved an invaluable help to the sightings, which up to now there have been very few gannets in the area, today we were seeing groups of 20+ plunge feeding and sooner or later a fin or fins surfacing in the area. A big shout went up at Red Point at 12:47 a minke whale was sighted approximately 1.5km off shore heading north. Big lunges through the swell and lots of spray as the wind caught the splash. 13:10 a small pod of four porpoises 1km off Red Point heading south towards the mouth of Loch Torridon. 13:15 one minke whale sighted off Peterburn approximately 2km off shore followed at 13:18 by a second approximately ½ km off shore. Lunch time gave a welcome rest out of the wind and showers and in steamed up cars nothing was sighted for a while. 14:59 big flurry of splashing approximately 4km off shore towards the north point of Rona Island and the Hinds Shoal area, lots of gannets and approximately 30 common dolphins. 15:20 A pod of harbour porpoise containing 4 adults and 2 juveniles ½ km west of Peterburn. 16:00 The land based watch finished. Overall in poor conditions a very successful day with the largest number of volunteer watchers to date. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who gave up their day to assist us with the watch. We hope that the next few days will bring improved weather conditions and more excellent sightings! Click here to return to list of news items |
