New Volunteer Training

It’s been a busy week here at Sea Watch! Three new volunteers have arrived to join the team and replace those who finished their placement. Indeed, it was mainly a week of training in field work and data protocols; because even if our enthusiastic volunteers all have some degree of experience in the marine field, it is necessary that everyone be on the same page.


During the week, our new recruits were introduced in detail to the work Sea Watch Foundation does in Cardigan Bay and beyond, with its coordination efforts of the observer network in the whole of UK and Ireland (which new blog readers may be interested in discovering here). Then they were trained in various protocols of data collection, including, for instance:

• Land watches from the New Quay pier, where dolphin sightings and boat encounters help scientists understand the use cetaceans make of the harbour, and how best animals and humans may coexist in coastal environments;
• Dolphin encounters on boat trips or dedicated surveys, emphasizing how to best estimate the number of animals encountered and their behaviour, and also how to take good note of the observation effort. This is a very important piece of information as it may influence the data collected; it is a truism to say that with clearer conditions, you might spot more dolphins, but it has to be taken into account when studying the data. Hence, it is necessary to know whether the visibility was good, whether the reflection of the sun on the water might hamper your sightings, and so on.

But all this is theory, and nothing is better than practice! One important piece of information to gather is the distance between you and the dolphins sighted, and estimating distances precisely with the naked eye is a lot more difficult than it seems. The volunteers were thus taken around town and asked to estimate various distances for a small practice session – it must have been a funny sight for the residents and tourists of New Quay to see this small group going around town with very concentrated faces and shouting distances to one another! All this training was concluded by an informal exam, when they were shown short footage of dolphin groups in various conditions and asked to judge in one short look the number of individuals, group composition, and sea state – that is, all the data that will make the observations both reliable and valuable. It is a bit like passing your driver’s license all over again – but in a more ecological way! Now, after being teamed up for their first shifts with experienced volunteers, they are ready to go on their own with a trained eye, ensuring that they miss nothing on their shifts.


Beyond the interesting and sometimes funny aspect of such training, all this emphasizes a very fundamental aspect of scientific work: the paramount need for consistency and reliability in the data collected, especially when it comes from the field and multiple people. When sea conditions are not ideal and you have to think quickly on your feet, ensuring that the protocols become reflexes makes things more comfortable and greatly reduces the risk of mistakes. This goes a very long way to help making informed decisions about wildlife management and conservation in the Cardigan Bay waters.

By Lionel (volunteer)

Our First Line Transect Survey

On Sunday 12th July the Sea Watch team gathered on the pier in anticipation of the day ahead. The previous day all the volunteers had been trained with the new protocol and were eager to put it into practice at sea. We had all been involved in surveys before but line transect surveys would be more scientific than ones previously encountered. With 10 hours planned we all knew that it would be a long day with few breaks to rest, there is always a job to be done on-board.

The weather looked ominous when we first set off with some dark clouds and a sea state 2. We had to head north, just passed Aberaeron to find the edge of the SAC (special area of conservation), the point at which the line transect would begin.

Transect line i1 was chosen at random from a hat, we had no trouble finding the start and set off in a southerly direction zigzagging our way down the coastline following the coordinate waypoints as indicated on the map. Other differences from previous surveys were that two independent observers had to be on look out at the stern of the boat scanning the horizon for dolphins using binoculars. This caused much amusement among a few members of the team as it is much harder than it seems to hold binoculars to your eyes for an hour whilst at sea, regular arm shaking was the first sign of struggling followed by many inventive techniques of holding up the binoculars to stop your arms aching.

Another difference is that when a dolphin was spotted it should be recorded in the usual fashion but no-one else should be notified until they had passed the 90° angle, perpendicular to the boat. At this point the transect line is left and photographic ID of the dolphins follows. After which the survey continues from the point that the boat left the line. When nothing had been spotted for a while one of the volunteers rather over excitedly yelled “Dolphin”, letting everyone know that there has been a sighting, not exactly protocol.

Just as we were passing back by New Quay, Rachel spotted three dolphins in the bay, one of which was Bond but by the time we had positively ID’d him the other two dolphins had disappeared out of sight.

The line that we chose was an inner transect, it meant that we only had to travel out halfway to the outermost boundary of the SAC, still, even this was 5km out from the coastline. We went all the way out and back to the coast without seeing anything until we met a group of three dolphins closely followed by a further two. After these encounters the sun came out and it became a lovely afternoon as we continued on to the most southerly boundary of the SAC south of Cardigan Island.

Overall the survey was a great success leaving everyone on board happy, spotting a group of 5 dolphins on the transit back to New Quay was a great way to end the day. In total 13 dolphins, a harbour porpoise and a few grey seals were seen.

Killer Whales in Fair Isle

Thursday 30th June heralded a spectacular encounter with one of the most awesome predators of the marine world: a pod of killer whales (otherwise known as orcas) arrived close to the shores of the little island community of Fair Isle. This was a fitting display for Britain’s remotest human outpost, which on Saturday 2nd July is to officially open the four million pound new building to mark a new era for Fair Isle’s world famous bird observatory.
The first person to spot the whales was Fair Isle Bird Observatory (FIBO) seabird staff member, Dr Will Miles. In his words:
“I was surveying a guillemot cliff, recording feeding rates, when in the corner of my eye the sea was cut by a black and white back. Had I imagined it? I stared at the spot, waiting… in a swirling vortex of fins and spray, the water suddenly erupted as eight killer whales hit the surface all at once! They were huge, powerful and feeding, and staying close in under my watch point - incredible views, mind-blowing, and I felt the adrenalin begin to kick! Struggling to clutch my phone, and nearly losing it down the cliff, I dialled the Bird Observatory to share the sighting.”














Soon to join him was FIBO assistant warden, Jason Moss. He takes up the story:
As the shout of “ORCA in Furse” rang through the Fair Isle Bird Observatory dining room, the split-second decision of whether to run to a vantage point or jump into a van was a big one and, on this occasion, I made the right choice! Reaching the tip of the Yessness Peninsula with Jane Reid and Becky Langdon, two of the orcas gave us the show of a lifetime, one after the other drifting slowly through the crystal clear water right under our feet! An utterly magical, unforgettable experience!”
After that, everybody ran out from their lunch to see the killer whales, which by this time had circled round the east cliffs and moved into the South Harbour. FIBO warden, David Parnaby, describes the climax of the event:
“The one thing guaranteed to empty the Observatory is a ‘phone call to say that there are killer whales showing and today’s sightings coincided nicely with the whole Obs sitting down to lunch – needless to say, the soup was abandoned as all the guests and staff went dashing out to try to catch a glimpse! We were amazed at the spectacle they put on, first of all off the north of the island, but then again in South Harbour where four of the killer whales surrounded a seal on a tiny piece of rock.

To be close enough to the killer whales to be able to hear them breathing as they came to the surface was incredible and it was a real moment of high tension as they circled the seal. Although there was a lot of sympathy for the seal, everyone was amazed to see a wildlife spectacle like that so close up. It was very typical of Fair Isle that the whole event was witnessed by all the schoolchildren, most of the islanders and many guests; everyone wants to see something like that if they get the chance. We know how lucky we are to live somewhere as amazing as this for wildlife and we see some pretty special things every day, but there’s no doubt that this sighting will really stick in the memory.”

The killer whales were first spotted at the shores of Fair Isle around 1.30pm and remained in the vicinity for two hours before departing south towards Orkney.

Heading south at the same time, but unfortunately a few hours behind, aboard the Fair Isle ferryboat, the Good Shepherd, was Sea Watch research director, Dr Peter Evans. He arrived on the Isle to be greeted by a mass of glowing, grinning faces full of joy at their afternoon experience.

Check out more photos on Sea Watch's facebook page.