Surveys and Seaweed

All of a sudden, we find ourselves into our final two weeks of the field work in New Quay. With the season creeping to an end we’ve still been working hard doing land watches and getting out on the water as much as the weather allows. We’ve had three incredible surveys in the last three weeks, with some amazing dolphin encounters.



The volunteers have witnessed plenty of Mothers showing off their cute newborns, while some of the juvenile pranksters were spotted playing with seaweed and generally getting up to no good! We are pleased to see that one of our more popular residents (and one of our adopted dolphins), nicknamed ‘Chris’ has given birth to a gorgeous calf, and we can’t wait to see more of them.





Some new faces have turned up in New Quay. A couple of Grey Seal pups have been spotted lounging around the coast – all fluffy and white - so cute! Don’t get too close though, they might not like it!

Back in July Sea Watch was lucky enough to secure grant funding from Environment Wales. This is for an environmental film educational workshops. These workshops are being run by Kirsten Hintner (a documentary film maker), alongside help from Sea Watch volunteers. One lucky class from Greenhill school in Tenby have been participating in the workshops this week. This project introduces the children involved to the process of producing short environmental films to encourage them to think about their local coastal and marine environment, while learning how to look after and conserve it.



Yesterday (Thursday), the group of ten came up to New Quay to learn about our work and film us in the field. While here they interviewed Jess and Kerry (two volunteers) asking them some important environmental questions about their chosen subject of Marine Pollution, the Cardigan Bay bottlenose dolphin population and the work of the Sea Watch Foundation.





The group also went out on one of the Ermol boat trips, run by New Quay Boat Trips. It turned out to be lucky, three bottlenose dolphins were spotted and several seals. It was a fun experience all round, and the weather managed to behave itself for most of the day.

So for another week it’s all still happening here at Sea Watch. Weather permitting we’ll be keeping track of the bottlenose dolphins. Soon most of them will head back to north Wales for the Winter (following the fish). It has been lot's of fun and we are all sad that the season is coming to an end so soon!

Love
The Sea Watch Team
www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk