Don't play with your food!

We’re just over a week into our third period of the season here at the Sea Watch Foundation, and what a week it has been! Our new volunteers arrived on the scene and after finishing an intensive week of training have been let loose in New Quay. A weekend in town was kicked off with a round of Bingo at the Queens, followed by a dedicated survey out on our faithful boat, Dunbar Castle 2. Here our 'Newbies' were introduced to some of our favourite residents in Cardigan Bay, including a couple of Grey Seals and ‘Chris’ a female dolphin who has been sighted here in New Quay for around 20 years! The volunteers headed out for a hike on Saturday evening, walking the coastal path into Aberaeron. The views were magnificent and a cool cider at the finish line made it all the more worth while.

We’ve had some great encounters with Bottlenose dolphins the last few days, with plenty of action happening right off the pier! Our volunteer Helene, snapped some great shots of 'Spike' fish tossing a huge fish – what a naughty dolphin, did his mother never tell him off for playing with his food!



This was the first encounter of 'Spike' this season we've records for this dolphin back to 2001, so it's great to see him again this year.

We were also lucky enough see a curious Grey Seal having a spy on some fish right below the Jetty.



Hopefully the weather will hold out so we can get out on the water again this weekend, maybe heading up to Northern Cardigan Bay to see what animals we can observe, photograph and record as well as enjoying more of the sights of the beautiful Bay.




Sea Watch Team
www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk

Hello, Goodbye

Well the Sea Watch team was as busy as expected entertaining the media last week. We were lucky on Thursday out on our dedicated survey with the Times newspaper reporters on board we had some fantastic bottlenose dolphin encounters near Aberporth. During one encounter two young adults swam alongside the boat eyeing us up and showing off with a fish in one of their mouths. The article in the Times newspaper is expected to feature in this Saturday’s (17/07/2010) edition.



The high sea state on Sunday meant an entertaining morning for the BBC Panorama film crew aboard the Dunbar. Fortunately we had plenty of dolphins feeding in New Quay harbour that morning offering plenty of filming opportunities - saving us the embarrassment of possible sea sickness off shore! The Panorama program on biodiversity is due to be aired over the August bank holiday; we will keep you posted with an exact date.



Its all change this coming weekend as it marks the end of another three month period for many of the Sea Watch Foundation volunteers. Those leaving the project are sad to say farewell to new friends, experiences and of course Cardigan Bay’s resident dolphins. Some of the volunteers are continuing along the road of marine mammal research in projects across the world. Sea Watch would like to thank the volunteers for their hard work over the last period and wish them all the best it’ll be sad to see them go, and offer a warm welcome to the new volunteers arriving on Monday.

Sea Watch Foundation Team
www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk

Bay is Reporters Paradise

Sea Watch Foundation (SWF) has a busy few days ahead entertaining journalists from esteemed Medias.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we will be joined by Simon a journalist from the Times newspaper out on a dedicated survey on board the Dunbar. He’ll be following us to report on our journey as we photograph the bottlenose dolphin population as part of our annual research here in Cardigan Bay.

On Saturday all of the volunteers and staff will be welcoming reporters from the Panorama programme on BBC 1 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/). They will be conducting some interviews and we will go out on Dunbar once again for a dedicated photographic survey. We are very pleased to welcome reporters from Panorama, as this is a great show, which has been running more than fifty years. They are currently gathering reports for a programme about biodiversity, which aims to show its importance/relevance to our lives.

The waters of Cardigan Bay are ones of the least polluted in the UK, and the area hosts two SAC’s (Special Area of Conservation), developed originally to protect the resident population of bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoise. The Bay constitutes an excellent example of the benefits of efficient protection, it’s rewarding that a quality programme and newspaper will be presenting the role of Sea Watch Foundation in this accomplishment.

Finger’s crossed that we’ll have some nice encounters to provide Simon and the BBC team with some fantastic shots of the dolphins, and us hard at work!

Sea Watch Foundation
www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk