Entries by Pine Eisfeld

Volunteer Laura is giving an account of the day...

We rose from the caravan this morning hoping that the wind from the night had passed, but the weatherman was right. It's blowing 25 knots from the south west. Beaufort scale 4 for sure. It's frustrating as we had seen harbour porpoises, bottlenose and Risso's dolphins 3 days ago so we know they're out there.

We had radio contact with team 'Life Aquatic' on Bardsey Island who confirmed it was too windy to do active dolphin searching but were occupied watching another newly born seal pup. The island looked almost tropical from the main land. 

The coast guard hut at Mynedd Mawr was closed this morning but on Monday their volunteers seemed interested in showing WDCS's cetacean identification sheets as few people know that the dolphins use the waters around Bardsey Island. We get lots of interest from walkers passing by and we feel really welcomed into the area.

Jacki Clark, a volunteer living in Macclesfield, has a boat in Pwllheli and has kindly offered to use it to support our boat surveys. The wind is forecast to die down so we look to set sail Thursday and Friday. Fingers crossed!

So, it is Tuesday today and the weather moved in on us yesterday afternoon. Rob and Sam managed to spot 10 Risso's dolphins yesterday morning off their vantag point to the north end of Bardsey. Two of the dolphins were seen breaching and then joining the rest of the group travelling towards the open sea to the west of the island. There was one very old, very white animal in that group, too!

Rob and Sam spent the rest of the afternoon photgraphing a seal pup which was only 1 day old! The grey seals use Bardsey as a pupping ground ans at this time of year there are lots of seal pups around waiting for their mums to come back and feed them. Just the photo opportunity Rob and Sam were waiting for! (Photos will follow at a later stage, as there is no email on the island).

Life on Bardsey is different from life in the caravan on the Lleyn. Rob and Sam live in the bird observatory, sharing the kitchen and the toilet bucket with some 13 other people who are mostly on the island for its bird life. The generator comes on for 3 hours in the evening, lights go out at 10 pm on the island and then there is nothing else to do than to go to bed.

Everyone comes together in the afternoon to log reports of the day's bird sightings, but I'm sure Rob and Sam get in a bit of dolphin chat, too.

Meanwhile on the main land, the only sighting seen during yesterday's morning survey was a stampeding cow along the country lanes! Thank goodness for our risk assessment... in the event of a stampeding cow... get out of the way. Check.

The storm drew in last night in full force. This meant Bea and Laura had to shelve plans for an evening bouldering round the back of the caravan. Pine cooked up a risotto which left us all warm and sleepy.

We will try some watching later today if the weather allows it. In the meantime, Bea and Charlotte are busy entering their data from yesterday's watch.

WDCS volunteer Pablo signs off with his final entry before leaving the Bardsey surveys…

The last few days on the Lleyn peninsula have been frustrating ones. The weather did indeed close in and all surveys were off for Friday and Saturday. But no need to be down! We’ve had a weekend of turnover and the team has evolved. Mike, database extraordinaire, has gone back to the WDCS offices and been replaced by Sam and Charlotte. Sam didn’t have long to settle in as he has already joined Rob on Bardsey Island (who finally made it over on Sunday!). Additionally, Laura is joining the mainland crew and replacing me on Monday. So lots of new faces!

Sunday saw our first venture out on the water. Pine and I were both raring to go out on CO814 with Sion, a fisherman from Sarn; ready to take award winning photos of the elusive Risso’s dolphin. This was sadly, not to be. After a four hour survey covering a vast area was completed, we had not seen one cetacean. Not even a glimpse!

Field work can never be all glamour and excitement, so this has to be expected from time to time. The famous Robert Lott once said, “Recording an absence is just as important as recording a presence”. A truer word has never been spoken, but it doesn’t make it more fun! Our day on the boat was brightened by a few grey seals and the ever reliable sea bird life of the Lleyn peninsula. We saw our first razorbills of the project and a solitary puffin, which lacked its bright colours of the summer.

After a disappointing start to the day, all was not lost. Firstly, we had received great news from Rob and Sam who had a great spotting of four Risso’s dolphins from their boat across to Bardsey Island. Then Bea and Charlotte spotted some bottlenoses just off their vantage point on Mynedd Mawr, and then the dynamite combination of Pine and the big eyes came to our rescue. In the dying hours of the day, a pod of five or six Risso’s dolphins (including a calf) had come to the shore to feed. It was a fantastic send off to a fantastic week. This part of the world has both stunning vistas and incredibly diverse wildlife. I can only hope to return to the Lleyn peninsula with the WDCS in the future!

Today's entry is from WDCS' science volunteer Pablo who joins us in Wales for the first time this week. 

As my first taste of cetacean field work, this year’s Bardsey Island surveys have already far surpassed the high hopes I had when I arrived on the Lleyn peninsula on Monday. Much of my drive up through central Wales was a disappointing view of some serious fog; little did I know the best was still to come. The views surrounding our mansion like caravan and survey points are simply breath taking. If you want a taste of New Zealand for a fraction of the price, get yourself over to North Wales! 

After two heavy sleeps and a day interrupted by weather, our work was to begin Wednesday morning. It didn’t take me long to discover that Plan A’s just don’t happen when trying to get to a certain Bardsey Island… Me and Rob have now settled into the mainland caravan as our plans to get across to Bardsey have been scuppered (I’m secretly fairly relieved after learning that my toilet for a week was going to be a bucket and some grass!). Even a day trip was out of the question, a burst sewage pipe saw to that! However, the subsequent days have more than made up for any of those minor inconveniences.

The first afternoon of surveys could not have been any more enjoyable. The sun was shining, the wind was low and the porpoises were feeding. To top it all off, Rob somehow spotted a very distant pod of around 15 Risso’s dolphins! They were a fantastic sight. After adding in the diving gannets, acrobatic choughs, a resident kestrel and a very inquisitive Wheatear you’d be hard pushed to find a better wildlife spot in the UK.

All was not so glamorous come Thursday morning when the realities of field work in the UK hit home. It was cold and the wind made it feel as though we were having our aerodynamics tested in a wind tunnel. No porpoise activity in the morning certainly added to our frustration. But once again the understated harbour porpoises made all efforts worthwhile. The afternoon had cleared up and a group of porpoises had once again come in to feed.

The harbour porpoise is not the flashiest of cetaceans, but the brief, mysterious glimpses they give you only add to the experience of observing them from afar. There was no sign of the elusive Risso’s dolphins on Thursday, but you can’t have it all everyday!

It looks as though the weather could close in for the next couple of days so much time could be spent in ‘the office’ (a local pub which conveniently has free Wi-Fi). Life could be worse….

Mike and Pine had never driven to North Wales before so this was going to be an adventure. After leaving the M4 at Newport we started to make our way north following faithfully Google’s idea of how we should get there. After we missed a turning off the A4 whatever we found ourselves looking at Pine’s road atlas for help. Fortunately this proved much easier to follow and Mike guided us along some B roads back to civilisation. It was a fantastic little diversion with tiny bridges that no normal-sized car could cross and sheep lining the road that might dart out at any minute.

All this excitement and we haven’t even seen a dolphin yet – how are we going to cope when that happens?!?!

As we journeyed up the A470 we passed RAYDAR (Rhayader) as we continued in our massive assault on the Welsh language.

Disclaimer: Please note that any resemblance the place names in this article may have to real places is simply the difference between reality and Mike and Pine’s grasp thereof.

When we got to Pwllheli, we stopped to pick up some supplies before heading off on the final leg to Aberdaron. This is where the Google directions really let themselves down and we had to rely on calling the farmer’s son whose caravan we would be inhabiting for the next 3 weeks to get some directions.

Day 1 in the Little Welsh Caravan

Mike has settled himself in the master bedroom while Pine has acted with shock horror at the size of the plates and mugs in the kitchen.

Pine has declared that for future fieldwork projects, we should not have to set up camp in a caravan. At the very least she expects a holiday cottage that has normal sized beds (one is only suitable for a dwarf, the others are only suitable for stick insects. If you happen to be broad shouldered you are out of luck). And more than one tea-towel.

Searching for the right spot
Whilst we despaired with the GPS as we tried to find the correct vantage points, we did manage to see Ireland in the distance with our binoculars. Mike then got a text message informing him of roaming charges now that he was on o2 Ireland ? while he was physically still in Wales!

After we had found our vantage point for St Mary’s Well and for Pen y Cil, we established our fieldwork office and looked up the tide times online.

That afternoon we decided that we should do some surveying at St Mary’s Well. In the space of 2 hours we saw many porpoises foraging and feeding in the Bardsey Sound. When I say “we”, I mean that Pine saw lots of porpoises, and Mike saw just a couple – his eyes not being as well accustomed to the act of porpoise finding. It was still a really great end to our first day on fieldwork.

Day 2 in the Little Welsh Caravan
This morning Pine was first up and experimented with the shower. It was favourable compared to showers used in Thailand, so Mike decided to brave it as well.
    

We set off to St Mary’s Well and spent the morning seeing very little except for a couple of boats and interesting and deceiving swirls in the water that pretended to be a whale’s footprint.

Then we went to Pen y Cil for lunch and managed to see 5 bottle nose dolphins coming around the headland. There was even a calf with them. There was much excitement as we followed these for a few minutes and Pine took some photos.

By 3pm we had only managed to record a couple of extra porpoise sightings so we decided to call it a day as we had to get back to receive the “Big Eyes” that were coming down from North Kessock.