Entries by Nicola Hodgins

And now i hand over to our very capable volunteers who have compiled todays blog.......!!!

It was the third day of surveying aboard the Gemini Explorer for this years WDCS moray firth survey work. Unlike the first two days the weather wasn’t quite as cheerful as the volunteers. The rain didn’t dampen our spirits, too much. It also didn’t bother the cetaceans as we saw both minke whales and a harbour porpoise. We couldn’t stay out for the full survey period as the weather deteriorated still further, forcing us to head for home early. Probably a good thing as even the wildlife was beginning to get hostile, one of the volunteers was accosted by a kittiwake whilst on cetacean watch.

While the day lasted it was eventful with a few sightings. There weren’t many birds out and about although the weather may have accounted for that. The swell picked up and the bow watch position became a considerably wetter place to be. Dodging the waves became a more and more difficult task until at last we were forced to abandon the bow watch post. Even with all the rolling and bouncing there was still time to catch a quick nap in between shifts, probably for the best as we prepare for a sunrise start tomorrow. We’ll be braving the weather but maybe more importantly 4 am, for another chance to get on the water and make the best of the time we have.



It’s certainly been a hard first week with a number of important lessons for the sea life volunteers learned, not least the best place to feed the fishes from. Hopefully though we’ve all adapted to life on the open seas now, meaning that the fish might be hungry but the sightings have definitely been on the up. Tragically though we are running low on ginger biscuits and the team aren’t sure how we will cope without them.

As we headed out to sea this morning we were accompanied by a very sobering thought. Yesterday, SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage) issued a new report detailing the fact that Scotland’s seabird numbers have plunged by 19% between 2000 and 2008. The main reason for this appears to be a shortage of food, such as sandeels whose numbers are affected by a rise in sea temperatures. SNH explain that lower fish numbers led to lower numbers of adult birds surviving from one year to the next, and not enough chicks being produced and surviving to replace them. Some worrying statistics included the fact that there are 71% fewer Arctic skuas breeding in Scotland than in the mid 1980s – making our sighting yesterday of 2 individuals all the more pertinent! (We may be here to find out more about the whales and dolphins in the Moray Firth but in addition to recording cetacean encounters we log all seabird sightings too).

Despite this slightly depressing start to the day we were in for an absolute gem of an adventure! The clouds soon parted, the sun beat down from high in the sky (oops….global warming? This is Scotland after all – and suntan lotion was the order of the day) and the water was positively mill-pond-esque, even with a gentle swell.

During the early hours of the morning you could have been forgiven for thinking that we were adrift in a great blue desert (or black desert depending on your line of sight). Quiet seas is an understatement, no cetaceans, no birds and certainly no other vessels – except for the fisheries protection vessel (could it be the same one that we'd been seeing over on the West coast?) that appeared to be patrolling the outer limits of the Moray Firth (more on fishing in the Moray Firth in a later blog!).

However by the time the sun hit its zenith things took a turn for the better and we started logging sighting after sighting. The day brought us 2 minke whales (1 sighting was to bring much joy and huge smiles to several members of the team as it was a very close encounter – no binoculars required – and verification of why they were here!), 4 harbour porpoises, 5 bottlenose dolphins and a couple of grey seals. Even the seabirds weren’t to disappoint and very soon we were clocking up the sightings including several young gannets, a great skua and 2 puffins!

The hydrophone came into its own and we recorded what can only be described as an absolute hive of porpoise activity – again, it just goes to show you what’s out there that you can’t always see with the naked (or “binoculared”) eye!



Before we knew it our survey hours were over and we were steaming back into Buckie harbour, all with red faces (from the sun – as all breaks were taken lying prostrate on the upper deck!), a belly full of ginger-nut biscuits (always a good addition to a day at sea) and excited about what tomorrow was to bring. Weather is looking good so come back this time tomorrow for another update!!

The weather gods were looking down on us this morning and smiling…..time for us to test out the sea-legs again and get back out on the water. With only a few changes to the crew (Kirsty from the centre and Hywel from RSPB) we headed off into the outer Moray Firth following a transect line that took us out to the Beatrice oil platform and back home in a rather large “figure of eight” – a trip that lasted approximately 12 hours. Thankfully the sea-state was constant somewhere between 1 and 2 and the swell was less than half a metre so no fish-feeding today!

The day began fairly uneventfully with few sightings, even of birds, but once we got out into deeper waters things started to pick up and we were soon logging sighting after sighting. Rafting birds were a-plenty, from the compact little kittiwakes to the highly visible gannets, and from the straight-winged fulmars to the everyday run of the mill herring gulls. Even the fairly elusive skuas were out in force and both the “great” and the “arctic” varieties treated us to a fly-by.

Although we only had the occasional sighting of the cryptic harbour porpoises the hydrophone picked up a fair few clicks emitted from these little critters and was reinstating the value of towing this acoustic device behind the boat – you may not see them but it doesn’t mean they’re not there! We had 4 really nice minke whale sightings (well some of us saw them at least - I believe I was at an advantage here as I’ve just spent a month scouring the Minch for them so was “tuned” in) all of them lone individuals sedately looking for what food the Moray Firth had to offer.



The late afternoon brought an unexpected visitor to the boat in the form of an RAF Rescue helicopter! Requesting permission to land, they dropped one of their crew onto the moving fore-deck as part of a practice drill, only to airlift him back up from the aft-deck. The whole event took over half an hour….and although happy to help when it comes to rescue practice (who knows when one may need it) we were wondering whether or not we could ask for reimbursement for lost survey time!! After my month of military spotting in the Minch, this as you can imagine was a rather surreal encounter!



And so a very successful day at sea came to an end and we all ambled back to the cottage in time for a quick dinner, some data downloading and a well deserved sleep! The weather isn’t looking great for tomorrow but we’re holding out for Friday!

Day 1 of the survey and the waters of the outer Moray Firth await…! Unfortunately we’re minus our canine researcher as she has yet to find her sea-legs and has thus decided to stay on dry land for the time being, she will however be joining us later in the week and will update you then on her thoughts and findings in the local vicinity that is Portknockie!! (No sheep Kila…sorry!)

With a slight bit of drizzle we arrived at Buckie harbour to board our research vessel the “Gemini Explorer”. A lifeboat in her previous life, she is now carriage for visitors wanting to go out and experience the local wildlife and for the coming weeks, our new home! After the obligatory safety notices we steamed out the harbour and headed north…out into the blue!

Unfortunately however it wasn’t to be the most successful of maiden voyages as within only minutes of leaving the haven of protected waters the ‘feeding of the fish” began!! The 3 metre swell started taking effect and one by one they fell…..leaving only 3 of us standing (my good self, Claire the hardy seal carer and Johnathan the Wildlife Centre volunteer)…..and the other 5 in various positions over the side and praying to Neptune for salvation!! Thank goodness we didn’t make the effort to make a slap-up breakfast – what a waste that would have been!! Our recently retrieved hydrophone decided to throw another spanner in the works and Captain Pine, despite trying every trick in the book (between visits to the head!) wasn’t able to bring it to life – some serious acoustic surgery is on the cards for this evening.

The swell wasn’t abating and the executive decision was made to come “off-effort”, turn the boat around and head for home…much to the relief of the “fish-feeding 5”. We returned to the cottage to back-up what data we had managed to collect, amidst the sickness, and set about planning for the coming days!

Roll on tomorrow….but maybe with the assistance of some sea-sickness pills for the majority of the crew!!

After a miserable week (weather wise of course!), we awoke to one of the most glorious days we’ve had yet! The sun was splitting the sky, not a cloud in sight and even the wind had abated slightly! Here was me thinking we’d have a lovely day of stick tossing and bog wallowing (found what I think is a great way to cool down at the bottom of the garden however I am assured by my humans that it’s not exactly clean – who cares, it cools me down!) and instead I was thrown into the back of the moving box and off we went to a fisheries conference which, surprise surprise, was all about fisheries……except for some lady who spoke about birds, a rather amusing gentleman called Duck who talked about sheep, I mean seals, and of course my human Sarah who talked about all the whales, dolphins and porpoises that they’ve been so fascinated with over the past month. I think I must state here that I am no longer under any illusion that us canines are their priority – very sad ?

(Human comment – “Not true!!”)

It wouldn’t have been too bad a day had someone not spent the session before lunch talking about Nephrops (otherwise known as Langoustine, Dublin Bay prawns, scampi – so many names…..but it all tastes the same!!). What a cruel thing to do…. especially as we didn’t even get to taste them….not sure I want to go to another one of these things! I spent the rest of the time dreaming of being on the beach and luckily my humans picked up on this and we soon went for a frisbee throwing session and a swim at the beach (and a quick stop at my new favourite shop – the butchers) before coming home to apparently go back “on-effort” – read as stick throwing and bog-wallowing for me and spotting for them! My humans have asked to interject at this point with some updates of their own so I’ll let them waffle on and be back to finish off the blog in a moment!

Thank-you Kila…..

As this field season comes to an end we have some news we want to share with you. We’ve successfully managed to retrieve the T-Pod (so a big thank-you goes out to Ewen for preparing the weight for us – it worked and we didn’t lose it!! – and to Ian for helping to both deploy and retrieve it).



We’ve since found out that although from our experience here we’d believe that cuckoos are plentiful, they are in fact becoming worryingly rare. We’ve already noted our sightings on the Springwatch website (www.bbc.co.uk/springwatch) and if you happen to hear or see any then please do the same.

We’ve also been keeping a special watch for the return of the Arctic Skua as we’ve been told they arrive with the terns, which we’ve been seeing for the past week or so but it wasn’t until today, our last day, that we witnessed this avian treat.



On our return from the fisheries workshop this afternoon, we were delighted to come across a pod of at least 12 common dolphins in Loch Gairloch. We thought we’d ended our month of surveys with a splash! But no, on starting a 6pm watch from our observation point, we were treated to a barrage of sightings – 3 basking seals, 2 pairs of porpoises, some possible dolphins (we lost them in the glare) and 3 minke whales. So we actually ended the survey with a blow!

Nicola is off to the Moray Firth for more field work in a week or so, so keep your eye on the field blog as hopefully we’ll have a lot more to tell you from the (north) eastern side of Scotland… and we’ll see you back in Gairloch in September…!



And now back to Kila……

It appears to be all over up in this neck of the woods and we’re packing up and getting ready to go…..! It’s been a tiring few weeks for me but full of fun and I’m looking forward to coming back already!! Perhaps next time I’ll finally get a hold of one of those dastardly sheep, the lambs that I met when we arrived last month are looking more edible by the day.

Oh…and apparently there’s a chance I’ll be in the Moray Firth too so perhaps I’ll speak to you from there!! Although that trip involves boats and I’ve not really got my sea-legs yet…..gulp!!