Sea Watch News Archive
News archived here are dated earlier than: 26 April 2008
28 March - DOLPHIN SOCIAL NETWORKS EXPERT TO HEAD NATIONAL WHALE & DOLPHIN WATCH
An expert in the social networks of bottlenose dolphins will be heading up this year’s National Whale and Dolphin Watch between June 21 and June 29.
Edita Magileviciute has been appointed as Sightings Officer for the Sea Watch Foundation for the event, and will be encouraging as many organisations and people as possible to take part across the British Isles.
Edita, who holds an MSc in Marine Mammal Science from the University of Wales and an MSc in Zoology from Vilnius University in Lithuania, has thrown new light on the social interactions of wild dolphins through her studies of bottlenose dolphins in Wales which indicate that there are strong, but fluid individual friendships within populations.
She said: “The watch is a tremendous event, helping to build up a snap shot picture of the whales and dolphins off the UK coast. Once again we will have official watches led by volunteer co-ordinators all around the British Isles. Anyone is welcome to attend any one of these watches and help us to record any sightings. The watches are free and you can stay for as little or as long as you wish. Our co-ordinators will be delighted to show anyone who attends how to identify the different species that they might see.”
Highlights from the watch, now in its sixth year, have previously included humpback whale and fin whale sightings, rare Sei whales as well as large groups of common dolphins moving further north around Scotland than every before.
Edita said: “Such findings help feed into the scientific debates about the health of UK marine mammals and into the impacts that any warming of our seas might be having.”
The National Whale and Dolphin Watch is once again being sponsored by BG. Details of watch venues around the country can be found on www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk
15 December - South Wales Humpback Whale dies, but a second is seen in the area
Sadly, the young humpback whale which had been sighted several times in Swansea Bay over the last two weeks, was found dead floating near Port Talbot early this morning. It was towed in by the local lifeboat and put ashore on Aberavon beach. A post-mortem will be conducted on Sunday (16th) to ascertain possible cause of death. Photographs will also be taken for comparison with other images held within a North East Atlantic Photo-ID catalogue. Although the dorsal fin of the whale photographed earlier has not been matched with any other humpback, the most useful feature is the pattern of markings on the undersides of the tail fluke which can be unique to different individuals. However, the whale is a juvenile male, reported as measuring about 25ft in length, and in those cases, they tend not to have clear markings on the tail flukes. Humpback calves are born around 15ft in length and so this one is clearly quite young and probably still reliant on its mother for milk. A report from the post mortem will follow in due course. The last time a humpoback whale stranded in Wales was on 16 October 1982 when a male came ashore not far from this one, at Lleys beach, Gileston, St Athan, South Glamorgan.It looks as if the whale was not alone because steelworker Christopher Davies reported two humpbacks - a young one and a larger individual at 2pm on Friday (14th) close in to the Port Talbot steelworks harbour area. The two whales stayed in the vicinity for a while, one of them putting its head up out of the water. The presence of two whales might explain some of the variable estimates of size made by different observers over the last ten days. At this stage, we do not know if the young animal was the one that was found dead the day after.
A juvenile humpback whale has been observed travelling between the Netherlands and Ireland over the last few months. That animal was seen in Holland in May, then photographed off southern Ireland by the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group at the end of September before turning up again in the Ijmuiden area of Holland on 16th November, being last seen there on 21st. A humpback was then spotted off the Aberdeenshire coast a few days later on 26th November, but it was not photographed, so it was impossible to tell whether it was the same whale as the one in Holland. Examination of photographs confirmed that the young humpback in Swansea Bay was not the same animal as the Dutch/Irish one, but with a second individual seen, the possibility remains that this could be that animal. It should be noted, however, that although rare, small numbers of humpbacks now occur regularly in British & Irish waters.
7 December - Humpback Whales in East Scotland & South Wales
This time of year is when we tend to get a few humpback whales coming close in to coastal waters, and this autumn has been no exception. On Monday 26th November in Stonehaven Bay, Grampian Region, just after midday, Sea Watch observer, Ian Sim, saw a humpback whale about a mile offshore. It was joined by a group of five bottlenose dolphins that had been feeding in the area since 11 am. The whale was watched feeding, spyhopping, tail slapping and flipper waving for over an hour before it headed off northwards. Then on the other side of Britain in Swansea Bay (Glamorgan), during the morning of Tuesday 27th November, Dean Williams and his fishing mates Richard Best, Darren Perkins and Steve Jones encountered a humpback whale near the marina entrance. They managed to take two photos of the animal as it came alongside their small 21’ boat. Later on, they returned to the same area near Swansea Marina, where they came upon large shoals of sprat. "The water came alive," said Dean Williams. "It was like the fish were jumping out of it. Someone said, 'I wonder if the whale's back', and right on cue the whale surfaced, flicked its huge tail and was gone. What an experience." By this point, it was nearly dark, so the quartet headed home.;)
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Since then, over the last ten days, the humpback has been spotted several times mainly around the Mumbles and in Bracelet Bay.
25 October - Pygmy sperm whale strands in Shetland
A pygmy sperm whale Kogia breviceps was sighted on Sunday the 7th October at Aith, in northwest Shetland mainland. Another sighting was made at Voe on Sun the 14th and again on the following day. On Wednesday the 24th October, an animal of the same description was found dead at Brae and confirmed a young pygmy sperm whale. However the animal seen and photographed in Aith could be the mother of the young animal that stranded in Brae.;)
This poorly known mainly warm temperate deep-water species occurs in all oceans of the world. In the eastern North Atlantic, pygmy sperm whales have been recorded mainly from West Africa (Mauritania and the Canaries) There are only a handful of records from Europe. Most of these are strandings - from Spain, Portugal, the Atlantic coast of France, the Netherlands, Wales, West Scotland, and Western Ireland; the few live sightings are mainly from the Bay of Biscay, and Atlantic waters of Britain and Ireland.
Thanks to Paul Harvey for reporting this sighting and to Irene Gray for the photographs.
23 October - Bottlenose dolphins sailing in Salcombe
A group of five bottlenose dolphins were sighted in Salcombe estuary, Dorset on Tuesday the 23rd of October. The animals were sighted near the bar at the stuary mouth and stayed bowriding and leaping around the sailing boats, entertaining everyone around them.;)
Thank to Clare and Julian Whitehead for submitting the report and the photos.