Shorewatch NewsWatch out for whales and dolphins from your local shore

A world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free

Issue: 28 Summer 2018

©Alice Walters

Contents

Summer Round Up 1

BWW Review 2-5

Shorewatch News 6-9

Shorewatch Calendar 10

Pick of the pics 11

Shorewatch Round-up

Dear Shorewatchers,

2018 has truely been a milestone year for Whale and Dolphin Conservation. As a charity we have just celebrated our 30th year protecting whales and dolphins across the world! We can honestly say that everything that Whale and Dolphin Conservation has achieved in these 30 years would not have been possible without our truely inspiring volunteers. The aims of WDC are clear: Stop Whaling, End Captivity, End Bycatch, Protect the homes of whales and dolphins and promote their rights, and you are helping us to work towards this goal.

Shorewatch is a wonderfully unique project and goes to show that citizen science has a crucial role in conservation and also in community. Everytime you speak to the public about the threats that whales and dolphins face you make a difference to their future, and every time you complete a shorewatch you contribute to data that helps us understand more about whales and dolphins and supports real policy change. A huge thank you to our wonderful volunteers!

2018 has also been a year of extreme weather! From the Beast of the East, to the hotest spell of weather we’ve had in Scotland for years! For many of us, the year got off to a slow start for cetacean sightings, with some suggesting that the cold weather at the start of the year may be to blame. However, everything seems to be catching up now in this hot spell, with many reports of excellent sightings of porpoise, bottlenose dolphins, humpbacks, minkes and even two unlikely fin whales!

As always, Happy Watching!

A world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free

277 Watches over

BWW!

Thank-you to all of our Superb Shorewatchers!

Over the weekend we had a fantastic 58 sightings from 18 of our sites. 45 Shorewatchers contributed to our BWW! And

we have seen 5 different types of cetaceans including, Risso’s Dolphin, Bottlenose Dolphin, Harbour Porpoise, Minke Whale

and Common Dolphin!

A world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free

BWW Review

BWW Data

EFFORT AND SIGHTINGS BY SITE

Site Efforts SightingsArmadale Pier 3 0Burghead A 5 0Burghead B 5 1Chanonry Point 2 2Cullen 44 3Findochty Church 3 1Fort George 11 7Kilt Rock 8 2Macduff 50 1Nairn viewpoint 5 0North Kessock 38 1Rhue Lighthouse 2 1Rodel 24 4Spey Bay 23 2Tiumpan Head A 15 3Tiumpan Head B 14 6Torry Battery 20 16Fraserburgh 5 0

Break-Down By Site Species Break-Down

258 individual cetaceans were record in effort-based watches over the weekend, with 5 species sighted.

149 Bottlenose Dolphins were sited across 6 sites.

6 Risso’s were seen at Tiumpan Head in 2 watches.

13 Minke whales recorded at Tiumpan Head.

4 Common dolphins sited at Tiumpan Head and Rhue.

9 Harbour porpoise were noted across the sites.

©LucyMolleson/WDC

SITE WITH MOST SHOREWATCHES MacDuff wins the title with 50 watches completed!

EARLIEST SHOREWATCH Graham Kidd who watches from Cullen made our earliest watch at 3:24am!

INDIVIDUAL WITH MOST SHOREWATCHES The individual with the most shorewatches was Ian Williams with a massive 50 watches over the three days. This was closely followed from Graham Kidd with 40 watches and Liz Brooker with 38!

MOST SITES VISITED Sue Harding visited 3 sites in ‘Bubblesmobile’ over BWW! Well done Sue!

MOST SIGHTINGS The most sightings goes to Monika Carrie, with 9 sightings from her shore watch site at Torry Battery! Bottlenose Dolphins galore!

NEWCOMER AWARD Our Newcomer award goes to Egle Tamulyte who trained on April 27th and has completed 15 watches at Fort George!

BEST 30TH BIRTHDAY CAKE As we loved both Krystina’s Orca cupcakes and Pippa’s Porpoise Cake so much, we have declared it a joint Best birthday cake! Fantastic effort both of you!

Shorewatch BWWBig Watch Weekend Competition Winners!

Millie Meg

Ted Riley

BEST SHOREWATCH DOGBest shorewatch dog goes to Millie from Kilt Rock, although they are all

winners in our eyes! How wonderful are our shorewatch

pups!

The Ninjas

Shorewatch BWW

Our Shorewatch 30th Birthday mugs have been a lovely addition to the celebrations, our mugs have made it far and wide across Scotland, but by far the furthest they have gone is the Falkland Islands! Here is a picture of this far flung mug from our shorewatcher Suzanne, who has been seeing Commersons and Peales dolphins, as well as Sei whales and Southern Right Whales in the Falklands!

Shorewatch Mugs

An update from Charlie

After coming back from a hospital appointment on Tuesday I happened to stop off in South Kessock for a quick look for dolphins as the tide was rising and I got dolphins all right – and a lot more besides. Watching Kesslet and Charlie in the rough tidal current for a few minutes with the village of North Kessock in the background I was suddenly aware of a huge dark shape surfacing from the waves and exhaling. It was absolutely huge and at first I thought I had a stray Minke whale on my hands but then looking at it again the dorsal fin was wrong as was the immense size - at least 50 feet at a guess.

After getting a few record shots I phoned BDLMR, SRUC and our SDC to make them aware that we had “visitors” then I phoned the owner of the two tour boats that leave from Inverness Harbour asking them to be careful coming in and out of the area in the meantime but also asked could I blag a trip out on a boat to try and get a better look at our huge visitor. Ten minutes later I was the only “passenger” onboard the ten metre RIB “Mischief” and Jamie and Yvette Hogan and myself headed quietly out into the Kessock Channel. Within ten minutes we had found the Fin whale and it was bigger than I first thought, possibly 60/70 feet long – but there was a second whale, much smaller and with a different dorsal fin so we had two – an adult and a juvenile.

As evening drew on and the tide started to drop I was hoping that both whales would head back out to sea and eventually they did, only for the adult to appear back the next day for a while but later that evening it did disappear and no sightings of either whale since I’m happy to say. Thanks by the bucketful to the WDC Shorewatchers for keeping in touch with me with the whale sightings in the Inner Firth – you guys were simply brilliant! Charlie Philips

The 27th June was a glorious day on Lewis not a cloud in the sky, no wind and a 0 sea state with numerous cetacean sightings throughout the morning. Around midday a regular and knowledgeable visitors arrived. “What are the big Whales? “ he asked. I hadn’t seen anything bigger than Minke until then. The two of us scoured the area he’d seen them in for nearly a hour without success.

An hour later I was looking out to sea at nothing in particular when a large whale broke the surface quickly followed by a second. The latter of the two raised it flukes as it went back under. At this point I wasn’t sure if they were Fin or Sei whales. After a quick look in a book for surfacing behaviours it stated that Sei never raise there flukes when diving. So Fin Whales, more than likely. A good while later I saw both of them lunge feeding at about 3km out. A really good day up the hill with 6 species seen, 5 on watch and a couple of Humpies seen from the car as I was about to leave. Fortunately the Fins stuck around for at least a week and I was lucky enough to see them on several occasions. They tended to stay at least 3km out apart from twice when at least one of them came in much closer.

Steve was very lucky to see these whales a number of times, making identifying them easier by using a number of cues. Unfortunately a positive ID is not always possible especially if just a glimpse of the creature is seen, in that instance recording it as “large unidentified baleen whale” is the best way to record what you have seen.

© WDC/ Charlie Philips

Some VERY large visitors for Kesslet in the Kessock Channel

More Fin whale sightings at Tiumpan Head! An account from Steve Dodd

Shorewatch News

WDC have launched a petition to help save New Zealand Dolphins from extinction. The New Zealand Dolphin is one of the smallest dolphin in the world, and it’s an important issue as currently only 60 dolphins remain around the North Island, and the South Island population is down to 20% of its former size!

These dolphins are endemic to New Zealand with one of the most restricted ranges of all cetaceans.

The Maui and Hector’s dolphins are being caught in fishing nets which are being used in their critical habitats, between the North and South Island. The fishing nets kill 110-150 dolphins in this area each year and the impact has been devastating for the populations.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. If we can persuade the New Zealand government to ban set and trawel nets from the dolphins’ home, the number of New Zealand dolphins will double by 2050 and we will save a species.

Help save New Zealand dolphins!

Signing the petition takes just 1 minute, you can find the link on

our website or go to:

https://uk.whales.org/campaigns/sign-petition-save-new-zealand-dolphins-

from-extinction

© WDC/ Mike Bossley

Citizen Science

Citizen science opportunites on Outer Hebrides

The Shorewatch program is only possible with the dedication and hard work of all of our Shorewatches.

We wanted to work out just how crucial all our fantastic Shorewatchers are to running this project. In the past 5 years we’ve logged 33180 watches on our database. If we had just one member of staff doing all the watches, doing 1 watch every hour, 8 hours a working day, every day of the year, it would’ve taken them 11 YEARS and 5 months of watching!

“It’s because of their [citizen scientists]

observations that we are beginning to understand

more and more about how the natural world works and

how we’re affecting it.”

-Sir David Attenborough

The Power of Citizen Science

As the ORCA Wildlife Officer in the Hebrides, part of my role this year has been team leading the new marine mammal surveys out to the Islands that started this spring. These citizen science volunteer surveys take place on the bridges of CalMac ferries, which are ideal platforms of opportunity where we can run dedicated distance sampling surveys from a stable platform on a regular basis, providing data on the same transect line month after month, year after year. This vital research will readily compliment the work already being done by WDC Shorewatch and HWDT’s small boat surveys.

After running a surveyors course in Oban last year we have had a fantastic start to the season with new local volunteers surveying West Coast waters. The 3 survey routes in the Hebrides this year are Oban-Barra, Oban-Coll, Tiree, Colonsay and Ullapool-Stornoway, and we expect another couple of routes to be added to this next year. They are proving to be particularly productive with some amazing sightings of 5 species of cetacean recorded so far – harbour porpoise, common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, risso’s dolphins and minke whales. The risso’s sightings have been particularly special and we have recorded them 3 times already this season across the Hebrides. We will be sharing any fin shots we have of them with the WDC Risso’s fin catalogue and it will be exciting to see if we get matches. We have also recorded 3 breaching minke whales and a number of basking sharks, two which were also breaching clear of the water! One very lucky first time surveyor had an amazing survey seeing Risso’s as her first ever dolphins and then the next day she experienced a minke whale breach right next to the bridge of her ship which was also her first ever whale sighting! If you want to try your luck next year then get yourself on our Marine Mammal Survey course in Oban on October 13th and you could doing the same. Find out more at: www.orcaweb.org.uk/get-involved © ORCA - Andy (ORCA Wildlife Officer)

Shorewatch News

Fitri, “our favourite girl in Aberdeen.” “Last year I have been able to get a picture of Fitri breaching and we are now sure Fitri is a girl! Fitri is pretty much resident here in Aberdeen seen most days for pretty much all day. She spends time here with 2, sometimes 3 other animals, one of them a juvenile. So far I have not been able to ID her pals. Fitri has shown she is a terrific fisher, and her back does not appear to hinder her. Based on information from catalogues Fitri was born 2005, so she’s doing well.” Monika Carrie

Aberdeen Dolphins

Recently Shorewatchers at the site have been in touch with Northumberland dolphin folk and it appears many of the south-ern animals visit frequently in Aberdeen, often in groups of 30 plus, then return back south. Almost as if Aberdeen acts a cross-over between north and south.

Torry Battery in Aberdeen is a fantastic site for viewing bottlenose dolphins, with dolphins spending often many hours in the bay, all year round. From the high vantage point of Torry Battery, watchers get a great view of the harbour mouth and North Sea.Shorewatchers Monika and Walter have been identifying individuals which are frequently seen in the area. Photo-ID involves taking a photo of the dolphins dorsal fin as it’s unique nicks and marking on the fin allows us to identify the individual, much like our fingerprints. It’s a great way of keeping track of the population as its a totally non-invasive procedure, so it doesn’t disturb the dolphins, and it helps us learn about population sizes as well as social dynamics between individuals.

AS WELL AS THE BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS, OTHER SPECIES SEEN FROM THE SITE INCLUDE MINKE

WHALE, WHITE-BEAKED DOLPHINS AND HUMPBACK WHALES.

© Monika Carrie

© Walter Innes© Monika Carrie © Monika Carrie

© Monika Carrie

Miller [CRRU 380/ au 1042] [CRRU 627 AU 1119] Jigsaw [CRRU 511/ AU 030]

Trixie [CRRU 085/ AU 880] and Fea [CRRU 423/ AU 886]

Fitri [CRRU 337/ AU ]

Shorewatch Calendar

Save the Date

t: 01343 820 339e: shorewatch@whales.orgwhales.org/shorewatch A world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free

Aberdeen Dolphins

© Walter Innes

Miller [CRRU 380/ au 1042] [CRRU 627 AU 1119] Jigsaw [CRRU 511/ AU 030]

29JUL

29-04JUL - Aug

31JUL

07AUG

02AUG

11-12AUG

National Whale & Dolphin Week

This event is run by Seawatch Foundation and runs from the 28th July - 4th Aug. If you would like to run a watching out

event from your own site then let us know!

Cullen Harbour GalaCome and see us at Cullen Gala where

we will be discussing marine plastics and watching out.

Where: Cullen HarbourWhen: All Day

Pizza Night and ShorewatchingAs part of NWDW we will be watching

whales and dolphins whilst eating pizza - what could be better?

Where: Burghead (the Broch)When: 6-9pm

Stoer Sea SculptureA family fun day making sand sculptures and watching for whales and dolphins!

Where: Clachtoll BeachWhen: 2pm

11SEP

?2019

Outer Hebrides Social EventWe are thinking of an ‘Orca-watch’ like event on the Outer Hebrides in 2019. Let

us know if you would be interested!

Where: Outer HebridesWhen: 2019

Amazing AgesWe need volunteers to run our

Shorewatch event stall at the event. Can you HELP?

Where: Fort GeorgeWhen: All Day

14-16SEP

13AUG

Big Watch Weekend!The shorewatch team will be watching from the Outer hebrides for BWW - join

us there or watch from your site!

Where: Everywhere!When: All Weekend

A talk from Connor Ryan“What we know about Humpback

Whales” a talk about the rise in sightings of Humpbacks and what it all means.

Where: Spey BayWhen: 7:30-9pm

A talk from Will CopestakeA talk about Will’s kayaking adventures in

Patagonia, come and get some wanderlust!

Where: Spey BayWhen: 7- 8:30pm

Watching out as part of Sewatch National Whale &

Dolphin Week

Where: Nairn Watch SiteWhen: 10.30 - 1.30

Pick of the Pics

Sperm whales are found in most of the world’s oceans, except the high Arctic and prefer deep water. They can be found in large numbers where food is abundant, and where the sea temperature suits them.

This species has been drastically affected by commercial whaling in the past and numbers are thought to have been decimated. Sperm whales are still threatened by hunting - principally by Japan.

Sperm whales are at risk from human disturbance and whaling, chemical and noise pollution and entanglement in fishing nets. The current worldwide population is not known and the conservation status of the sperm whale is listed as Vulnerable (IUCN 2008).

Sperm WhaleOther names: Cachalot, Pot whale

Maximum length: Male: 18.3m Female: 12m Calf: 3.5m

Maximum weight: Male: 57,000kg

Diet: Squid

Estimated population: 100,000

IUCN Listing: VU

©Tony Wu