6th November 2003:    Point Lynas, Anglesey, UK.

Logbook 10:20-12:25 GMT

" . . . Walking to the lighthouse I immediately noticed 50+ gannets circling close to shore and plunging at speed into the water in pursuit of fish.  Such congregations of feeding gannets almost guarantee cetacean activity, and I was not disappointed - a small pod of five harbour porpoises surfaced under the nearest gannets, and close enough to clearly hear the sharp blows as they surfaced to breathe.  Such sharp inhalations of breath have earned porpoises the nickname of 'puffing pigs' in Scotland!  Scanning the waters around Point Lynas with binoculars, I estimated a total of 30+ porpoises feeding in scattered groups in the tidal rips and out to the horizon, most groups accompanied by gannet escorts.  Several groups remained within 300 m of the headland and provided me with some of the best views of porpoises I have experienced in nine years of sea-watching!  Quite contrary to any identification guide you will read, porpoises near Anglesey are exceptionally active aerially, and breaching clear of the water in 'dolphin-style leaps' is not unusual behaviour.  Porpoises tended to surface in glassy slicks amongst the tidal rips, and several animals appeared to feed together in almost coordinated activity seemingly herding shoaling fish.  The breaching behaviour tended to occur as several animals congregated together.  Coordinated surface-rushing was also exhibited several times, with porpoises moving rapidly through the water producing spray and large splashes.  Unusually, the tail flukes were seen twice when porpoises sounded - clearly they were diving relatively deeply, and it is possible that they were at times foraging on the seabed . . . "

Although the harbour porpoise is typically reported as an undemonstrative species, these observations made continually over a two hour period suggest that at times the harbour porpoise can be just as energetic as its larger dolphin relatives.

September 2003:    Faroe-Shetland Channel, Seismic survey vessel

Logbook 28th September

" . . . I had been listening to only water noise and seismic airguns for several hours, when suddenly 'Click . . . click . . . click', the regular pulsed clicks produced by a sperm whale.  On screen, the clicks appear in the software as a series of dots and enable us to estimate a bearing to the vocalising whale.  It is ahead of us, about ten degrees off the bow.  After notifying the visual team, I return to the headphones and listen to the whale vocalising somewhere ahead of us.  We are in deep water (1,800 m) - the typical habitat of sperm whales, and I wonder whether this animal is using the sound to echolocate for squid prey or for range-finding, keeping track of its distance from the seabed. Suddenly the clicks stop.  A short while later, Jon shouts across the bridge - 'blow'!  The whale has surfaced ahead of us and produces a series of low, bushy blows as it refuels its oxygen store.  One feature of sperm whales, is that they only produce their regular click trains while diving - the vocalisations cease while the animal is at the surface.  Such observations allow us to correlate the acoustic and visual methodology and double-check everything is working properly.  We watch the whale for ten minutes, before it starts to rise slightly higher from the water, and after the next blow it lifts its tail flukes clear of the water and dives.  A minute later, the clicks recommence through my headphones, and I track the whale acoustically as it passes the beam of our vessel and disappears from range astern of us . . . "

September 2003:    Faroe-Shetland Channel, Seismic survey vessel

Logbook 30th September

" . . . A cascade of dolphin whistles is audible through the headphones, and the computer screen fills with red squiggles as the whistle contours are displayed as spectrograms in the software.  Visually, we can see several low blows a kilometre or so abeam of us.  Dolphins do not usually produce such blows - something is not quite correlating between the visual and acoustic data, and we soon know why.  Pilot whales!  The dark backs and large dorsal fins are soon visible below the blows, and the whales are heading our way.  We wonder where the dolphins are - pilot whales produce lower frequency vocalisations than the contours on our screen, and we are sure there are dolphins here somewhere too.   In the deep waters north of Scotland, pilot whales are quite gregarious and will frequently mix with other cetacean species.  It is not uncommon to find them with Atlantic white-sided dolphins, and less frequently, with offshore bottlenose dolphins.  We have even recorded them with northern bottlenose whales!  On this occasion, when the dolphins appear they are white-sided, and at least 200 animals are spread over a few kilometre area.  The mixed pod of pilot whales and white-sided dolphins take 30 minutes to pass us, and we track them both visually and acoustically throughout the encounter.  We continue to hear the dolphins long after we lose visual contact, and the occasional lower frequency chirrup from the pilot whales suggests that they are all continuing south together.  The aurora borealis rounds off another good day at sea . . . "

24th August 2003:    Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, UK.

Logbook 09:35 BST

" . . . The morning was very still and overcast, perfect for spotting cetaceans.  Never one to venture anywhere near the sea without a pair of binoculars, this morning we were exercising the dogs on the long sandy beach at Balmedie and keeping an eye out simultaneously for cetaceans!  Unbelievably, we had only just reached the top of the sand dunes and taken a first look at the sea, when a dark shape rolled only 500 m from shore.  Experience suggested that such a long low roll was indicative of minke whale in UK waters, and binocular views confirmed this.  We watched the whale for about 30 min, as it travelled slowly south, occasionally lunge-feeding under large flocks of feeding gulls.  Scanning with binoculars also revealed many small groups of harbour porpoise, with an estimated 50-60 animals spread out throughout Aberdeen Bay.  Clearly, feeding was good today! . . . "

Observations such as this prove the point that if you don't look, you don't see!  Several cetacean species particularly the harbour porpoise and bottlenose dolphin can be seen throughout UK waters from coastal vantage points, and others such as minke whale and white-beaked dolphin also move into our coastal waters in the summer months.