We were alerted earlier today but Rich Wilcock that an amazing drone footage of a large pod of bottlenose dolphins had been taken off St. Tudwals West Island on May 7th, so we got quickly in touch with the drone owner Andy Huddlestone, and here is his story!!
We headed out on our boat “Chloe Lou” at around 8.45am in thick sea fog, after heading out to St Tudwals Island West the fog started to dissipate as the sun warmed up, we spotted a pod of dolphins just off the bow and soon realised that we were completely surrounded by playful dolphins jumping in and out of the boat wake.
Bottlenose dolphins leaping around the boat “Chloe Lou” – Photo: copyright Andy Huddlestone
Bottlenose dolphins leaping around the boat “Chloe Lou” – Photo: copyright Andy Huddlestone
Quickly we prepared the drone for take-off thinking that it would be the best way to get close to them without scaring them off, what we saw next was breath taking! We followed 15 dolphins for over 45 minutes swimming around the bay, they would swim for 5 minutes, stop to play and then carry on their travels.
Large pod of bottlenose dolphins captured by a drone off Abersoch – Photo: copyright Andy Huddlestone
We had at times 4 of them swimming under the bow of the boat with 4 more playing in the wake behind. We have never seen so many dolphins together in Abersoch and we think that some of them were possibly juveniles as the size difference in some of them was huge. After we left and had a proper look at the footage that we had captured we were amazed, it still takes our breath away to this day.
And if you wanna know more about drones and their use to conduct marine mammal research read this post of ours:
www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/drones-can-they-be-used-for-marine-mammal-research/
