Outer Hebrides

It’s been a challenging few weeks as we have been subjected to gale force wind ... wind ... and even more wind. But it’s when times are the toughest that the gems sparkle the brightest and we have had some real corkers in the small weather windows available to us!

In an earlier blog we introduced you to a pod of bottlenose dolphins that we had encountered on several of our surveys last month. It would appear that the pod have been hanging about and foraging close to the coast. Apparently surprisingly for some, bottlenose dolphins are not considered common in these parts, however we have encountered them two out of the three years that we have spent surveying here. When we came across them most recently off Tiumpan Head this week, they were in the mood to spend some time with us. Any doldrums that had been brought on by weeks of high winds were quickly forgotten. There were three youngsters in the pod and Nicola immediately recognised one of the distinctive females (with quite a large mark at the base of her dorsal fin) and her young calf as we had seen them a month ago on one of our earlier boat surveys. The young calf appears to be doing incredibly well! The foetal folds were still visible on the sides of its body as it leapt clear of the water beside us with the sun shining behind it, but they were much reduced and it was almost twice the size as when we last saw it! Life must be good off the east coast of Lewis

Pretty quickly we realised that mixed in amongst the group was a startlingly white adult Risso’s dolphin! This individual, with a much bigger dorsal fin and different surfacing behaviour, was mixing with the bottlenoses like a trusted old friend and was behaving just like a bottlenose, even riding on the wake of the survey boat briefly. We watched it travel alongside the boat, beneath the water (and surfacing much less regularly than the bottlenose dolphins), but its startling white colour gave its presence away below the surface.




We got photographs of their dorsal fins and recorded the times that they were close to our acoustic equipment, hoping that we will be able to hear and differentiate between them and then we left and let them be.

As if that encounter wasn’t heart pounding enough, we soon came across a wibbly-wobbly finned sunfish in the shallows off Bayble, in the heart of our survey area!




We took advantage of a reducing sea towards the end of the day to retrieve the first of our four acoustic devices that we deployed in June. They sit quietly in the water and wait for a porpoise or a dolphin to pass and then they spring into life and record any dolphin chit chat. Not only did we find a couple of spider crabs and a squat lobster on our ropes but we got 100 days of lovely dolphin and porpoise chatter!!



And as if all that excitement wasn’t enough, we were on our way back to the harbour (dodging the rainy squalls) when the glint of a true slimy sea monster - an 8 metre basking shark [yes, EIGHT METRES long!] - was spotted by our eagle-eyed skipper. This gentle giant was busily feeding in the rushing tide, in front of a beautiful fat and colourful rainbow that settled on the surface of The Minch. He was much bigger than our survey boat!



Although autumn feels like it has arrived here and the auks and skuas are much fewer in number, gannets still dive around us on the water and The Minch is clearly still full of life. We arrived back on dry land with big smiles on our faces and our spirits restored – and ready for the next watery adventure!

Yahoo … I'm back, both here on Lewis and here on the blog! Go on admit it … you've missed me haven't you?!

Our humans have had some great land based sightings since we've arrived, a lot of which have been really close to the coast and therefore we've had lots of fun running over the heather and jumping bogs to get as close to the critters as possible. Some times they've been only metres away from us … ! Personally, i think that the dolphins heard that we were back and came to say thanks for our efforts on the Dolphin-Dog Walk … on which note it's still not too late to donate to our worthy cause - and if you do that'll likely mean more treats for us, although to be honest it's not that we do too badly as it is … but who doesn't like an extra chew every now and then?

It's been great returning to our old stomping grounds, otherwise known as some of the most beautiful beaches i've ever had the pleasure to walk on. I have to say, what i find quite bizarre is when the wind is blowing so hard that it almost knocks you over, you'd expect massive rollers crashing onto the shore but no … sometimes there's hardly a wave … apparently it has something to do with the wind blowing so hard in the opposite direction that the waves have no momentum whatsoever!! Weird eh? But better for us canines who are a wee bit shy of big white foam!

The highlight so far for my trusty assistant (Harvey - remember him?) and I, has been our "new" walk.



It's only taken our humans 3 years but they've finally stumbled upon … wait for it … drum roll please … a WOOD! I know … i didn't believe it either and thought i was dreaming but yes, here on what i historically referred to as the "Stickless Isles", there is in fact a secret haven (or should that be heaven?) with a plethora of toys for us canine carbon munchers!! Very exciting indeed … and as far as we're concerned, possibly the best find our humans have had since they found the local butchers!!

Even Harvey, who's not known for his fondness of sticks, has been getting in on the act, although i think i may have to reprimand him somewhat as despite there being an abundance of sticks, for some reason he always wants mine!





Due to the bad weather (well only "bad" if you're wanting to look for dolphins and other marine things) we've managed to persuade our humans to let us visit the "wood" a good few times and we've not yet been on the same path, this must be some size of wood!! (Note from human = the "wood" is otherwise known as Lews Castle Grounds and is 600 acres of mature woodland that has been here for centuries!). Harvey and i think they must be feeling a wee bit guilty about never having brought us here before and making us make do with driftwood and seaweed … although to be honest seaweed is pretty yummy!

Other exciting things to happen on the island since we've arrived include the stranding of a minke whale up on the north coast of the island. We were keen to go and check it out but the humans wouldn't let us as it had been dead a while and they thought it best we stayed away! … But CSI Lewis (Canine Strandings Investigations) have not been idle and only yesterday, on our local beach, we sniffed out a poor dolphin who'd obviously been dead for a wee while. Possibly a bit far gone to determine what species it is/was but hey, that's not our job … we leave that to the humans, we just find them!





Sadly (for the humans that is) the weather is due to continue to be pretty atrocious for the coming few days … yeah, more walks, ahem .. i mean, aw shame!! So you may be hearing from me again before too long … in the meantime i'm off to see if we can use our puppy dog eyes (being 77 - or 11 in human years - Harvey and I have had a wee while to practice this look!) to return once more to the wood-pile!!

Until the next time … woof!

Well, poke me in the eye with a blunt stick if we've not just had one of the best first weeks of a fieldwork season out here in the Atlantic Frontier - and given that the weather has now turned and the wind and rain are battering the islands we're even more grateful for our encounters last week!

After a stupendous encounter with a pod of highly exuberant common dolphins (see previous blog), it was the turn of a few other species to make our hearts soar - including the bottlenose dolphin. The west coast of Scotland population of these chaps is less studied and less well known than their Moray Firth (or even Cardigan Bay) counterparts and any chance to see them at closer quarters (but not too close mind!) is an absolute delight.

(It is important to note here that if you do come across dolphins when out on the water that you "must" keep your distance and let the dolphins approach you if they so desire, if they don't, then leave them alone as they're obviously busy engaging in other activities and interfering with them can cause them distress and land you in hot water with the authorities. We have a permit from the Scottish Government to allow us to spend limited time to photograph the animals as this is helping to build a picture of the population, their health and social structure.)

We first spotted a foraging pod of them from our land-based site and as they were pretty close to shore, feeding off a reef, we were able to spot a few young animals in the mix. Always a good sighting! The following day the weather was being kind and we managed to get back out on the boat. As we exited the loch to head out into the Minch some of the friendly porpoises that we know to use the area came over to check us out and we took this as a good omen of things to come! Within minutes of us arriving in the waters where we'd seen the bottlenose dolphins the day before from land, we saw fins … and were exceedingly happy to note that we'd found the same pod, foraging once more on this obviously productive bit of reef. Keeping our distance we held back and allowed them to make the first move … which they very soon did. As anthropomorphic as this next bit may sound however, there really is no other explanation for it … two individuals made their way over to the boat, swimming around and under us and having a good look, they returned to the pod and within minutes, the whole pod (including the mothers and calves - of which there were two) were heading our way and coming in for a closer look - obviously the two who'd come over first had had some good things to say about us!! For the next 20 minutes or so they delighted us by surrounding the boat, leaping out the water and splashing all around. We decided to leave them to it and took our leave, only for them to decide to come with us, travelling alongside on both port and starboard, and bow-riding as we went! We carried on our course and soon they returned to their lunch … having built up more of an appetite.

The following day it was back up to the land based site where again we were treated to a sighting of dolphins, this time a lot further out in the Minch. There was lots of splashing and leaping however this time they were too far for us to tell what species we were seeing, let alone if it was the same dolphins as the day before. We also had our first sighting this year of a basking shark and we were excited about the prospect of more sightings to come! And we didn't have to wait long … the following day it was to be another day on the water for us (good to get them in when you can as the weather here is as changeable as a chameleon in full swing!) and we were hoping to see if we could find any more critters!

Back up at the "Head" (Tiumpan Head) we quickly spotted a rather large basking shark, possibly the one we'd seen from land the day before, and set about taking photo-id pictures of its fin before undertaking a "de-sliming" to get a sample that we'd send off for DNA analysis. Colleagues at the University of Aberdeen are undertaking a study on the DNA of basking sharks around the UK as very little is known about these giants of the sea. Being able to know more about the inter-relatedness of these animals will be important for their future conservation - are the animals seen off the inner Hebrides related to the ones we see here off the Isle of Lewis? All very interesting questions and when basking sharks can offer up their DNA very easily (their bodies are covered in a film of slime and you only need a small amount - taken with a piece of cloth attached to a long pole - to get some useful information), and we can get close enough to them to do this, we are keen to help the study as much as we can!







As if this wasn't enough excitement for one day, on our return trip to harbour, we came across another pod of bottlenose dolphins. On closer investigation it became apparent (through markings on their dorsal fins) that these were some of the same animals that we'd been seeing on previous days! Once more they came over to check us out, playing in the wake of the boat and zig-zagging underneath us as we carried on our way.








With the weather turning we managed one more day of land-based watching, although to be honest it looked rather messy out to sea with lots of white-caps and a swell in the making and we were thankful we weren't out there being thrown about this way and that! Despite the less than great conditions, again we spotted a few basking sharks just hanging off the coast, slurping up the plankton and then our eyes were drawn to a mammoth amount of splashing off in the distance … more dolphins! Again, they were too far off for us to be able to determine species but there was much activity - lots of racing at the surface and splashing - and they spent the following 3 hours or so moving up and down the Minch … delighting not only us but several other people who'd come up to see what wildlife there was to see from this wonderful vantage point.

But alas … our good fortune wasn't to continue and the wind and rain that's been prevalent throughout the UK found us … and started its battering of this chain of islands! So whilst we're confined to indoors (excluding the mandatory dog walks which Kila will be only to happy to tell you about in the next blog) we can only hope that the dolphins are still there and will be encountered again as soon as the weather improves! We're still waiting for the first few Risso's of the season but i have a feeling it won't be long … so stay tuned!

We (WDCS researchers Nicola and Sarah along with our able Canine Research Assistants, Kila and Harvey) have returned to the magical Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland for 8 weeks of field work in search of Risso’s dolphins and other marine megafauna – and we have received a warm and watery welcome!

Yesterday was our first land-based survey day and we were treated to two minke whales, a harbour porpoise and a sunfish sighting from our beautiful lighthouse vista at Tiumpan Head on the Eye Peninsula (To be honest, the sunfish looked more like a plastic bag when we first spotted it as it didn’t have the typical ‘sailing’ fin – but after closer inspection, and gauging its speed through the water, we were confident as to what it was!)

Today the forecast led us to believe that it might be good enough weather to venture out in the boat - and the forecast was mostly right, we only got a wee bit soggy! Our porpoise friends lived up to their name in Loch Erisort where they actually came ‘porpoising’ out of nowhere, puffing their way repeatedly past and under the boat.

We left the low and ominous clouds that were hanging over Lewis behind us and headed out into the Minch, and south towards the Shiant Islands. As we ploughed through the turbulent water of the East Shiants Bank, we passed a colourful puffin on the water, a few guillemots, two large rafts of some hundred odd juvenile kittiwakes, many young flying gannets and our old friends the bonxies (skuas) who came alongside to check us out.

The Shiant Islands themselves didn’t disappoint. How could they? It’s been very dry on the Western Isles for several months (of course the rain has started now that we have arrived!) and the grassy slopes above the scree are brown and autumnal. After a brief pause to admire the basking grey seals that were lazily watching us from the water, we decided to try and beat the dark and foreboding black clouds home.





We made good progress as the tide was now with us until Lewis, our skipper (let’s not get confused with the island now!), shouted “dolphins ahead!” We had heard that common dolphins had been spending the last few weeks in this stretch of water and we were delighted that they had found us. Let the Dolphin Olympics commence!






Performing world-class acrobatics, they were with us in no time. Bow-riding and leaping all around us, especially in the wake at the aft of the boat, these dolphins put on a display worthy of a gold medal or three. Speedy though they were, we counted about 25 dolphins including a very young calf and three other small animals. What a great start to our field season!

Posted on behalf of Kila and Harvey - the Canine Research Team!

In case you've not read my blog before, i'm Kila and i'm the WDCS Canine Research Assistant.

Harvey is my side-kick, otherwise known as the "Assistants assistant".



In our role as the "WDCS Canine Research Team" we're used to helping out our lovely humans (otherwise known as Nicola and Sarah) with their research on the whales and dolphins that frequent the waters off the coast of the Isle of Lewis in the north-west of Scotland. To date we've busied ourselves with keeping them company on the cliff whilst they look out for fins (we look too of course but until someone invents some canine binoculars we can only keep our beady eyes on the inshore goings-on!), picking up rubbish on the beach (as some items can make good playthings in the absence of sticks) and sniffing out any marine creatures that have ended up on the beach … we're actually very good at this and so far have found a Risso's dolphin, a basking shark, the remains of a white-beaked dolphin, a blue shark, some jellyfish and of course several birds.



This year however we were given the opportunity to do something really exciting (if slightly scary) for our flippered friends, and Harvey and I signed up (well ok, our humans signed up for us as we've not quite got the hang of using a pen) to do a "Dolphin Dog Walk" which would see us embarking on a fairly major hike up the east coast of the island over endless miles of machair and peaty moorland. We've been training hard doing beach runs every day and we had planned on doing it last week but our humans advised us that the gale force winds made the conditions a wee bit too dangerous and they were a bit concerned for our safety so we postponed it by a day or two until the weather had calmed down slightly - this is after all one of the last frontiers into the North Atlantic and wind-less days are not all that common. Yesterday however it was declared to be perfect conditions, the humans packed their back-packs (making sure there were lots of tasty treats for us in there) and Harvey and I … well we just got out of bed, stretched and were off!

The walk started at the "Bridge to Nowhere" - that was the scary bit … where then were we walking to? - but we were assured that it wouldn't be an endless trek and that there was a destination in mind. With this information in paw, Harvey and I got the wind beneath our tails and set off with spirits high. It did of course help matters that the local rabbits came out to play and egged us on over the first hundred yards or so!



We'd actually tried to embark on this walk last year but after a mile or so we had to turn back as it was so soggy underpaw that it was like walking through treacle, and with a distinct lack of wind we were being eaten alive by midges! This time around however, as there has been literally no rainfall in the islands for months, we had been assured that it would be relatively dry underpaw. The light winds would ensure that the midges were absent and as the sun was shining it was nigh on perfect conditions for a good stomp!

The humans had a map (always good to carry one of these if you ask me) and some nice person had obviously been out before us and planted lots of colourful sticks in the ground which we were told we were meant to follow and sadly not chase and chew. It has to be said however that trying to find green sticks on a green background did at times prove to be quite a challenge … see earlier comment about bringing a map!



Only a mile or so in and one of humans (we'll call her Nicola) was our first "bog casualty" … one minute she was there, the next she was almost half her size, only to reappear to her full height with a rather wet and dirty right leg … yip, she'd stepped right into a rather big bog and as you can imagine was none to happy about it … that'll teach her to watch where she was going! The humans then sneakily devised a strategy that would see us going first - to test the ground - but Harvey and I were having none of that and made sure there was always a human out in the lead.



The first few hours were pretty tough going as we sidestepped hidden bog after hidden bog (they learn fast these humans) but the views out across the Minch made up for it. We had an outstanding window on the world below and we could see for miles in all directions - although to be honest it was just miles of machair in the direction we were headed!





There were lots of wee lochs dotted around for us to cool off in and we made the most of the free swimming opportunities. Not content with just the lochs, Harvey soon became known as the "bog dog" and whenever and wherever there was a chance for him to get wet and dirty … he was there.





Approaching the half way mark we had to descend down the hill before climbing back up but the humans noticed that the gully led out down to the sea and we were soon veering slightly off track and heading for the bottom where a beach (albeit a very small beach - and even smaller given it was high tide) awaited! We didn't get there without a fair bit of rock-climbing (i think they've mistaken us for goats here) but it was worth it to get to the bottom and have a cooling off dip in the sea. After a little bit more mountaineering and a return to the heather'ed landscape it was time to stop for lunch (and a tasty treat, or 2 for us … just to keep our energy levels up of course) and what a perfect spot our humans picked … more glorious views out to sea and some lovely soft grass for us to rest our weary paws on.







But they don't hang around long our humans and before we knew it we were off again. We tried to stick to the coast as much as we could but every now and then we had to come slightly inland as there were more gullies (this time with no chance of getting down to the bottom in one piece) and bogs to avoid. As far as wildlife spotting during our walk, there wasn't much to write home about … we came across a few red grouse (both of which appeared very surprised to see us!), some fulmars and kittiwakes soaring over the cliff edges, and a few other wee brown birds … as noted before, an ornithologist i am not! We also kept an eagle eye on the waters below but it was a bit choppy to see much and we only registered a few unidentified splashes far off in the distance!



Our "Dolphin Dog Walk" should technically have been called the "Dolphin Dog Bog Jump" as we (and the humans) spent the second half of the walk bog jumping - this of course caused much hilarity as the humans were not quite as adept at it as us 4 legged creatures and ended up lying on the ground quite a few times!! (I think they were actually just tired and using it as an excuse to have a wee rest!)





On and on we went, passing by more sticks in the ground that i wasn't allowed to chase although i think another dog must have been because at one point there was a distinct lack of said sticks and the humans had to get out the map and double check our route!



Soon however the end was in sight, which is a good thing because if truth be told we were starting to tire (we are after all both getting on in our dog years … !!) and we were very happy to spy the finish line ahead! It had been an eventful day and we'd covered a huge amount of distance and seen a whole part of the island of Lewis that we wouldn't have been able to see had we not walked (and jumped) it! We were thrilled that we'd achieved our goal and that in the process we'd managed to raise vital funds for the really important work that our humans do over here … it really was a fantastic day!



Our blog wouldn't be complete without a massive shout out to our support team - Kila (our WDCS ShoreWatch colleague with a wonderful name!) and Janet who very kindly ensured that we got to and from the start and end points of the walk - being that it wasn't a circular walk some logistics were required!! And of course an even bigger THANK-YOU to everyone who sponsored us … we're very grateful to you all and really appreciate the words of support that you've given us on our Just Giving page …!! It's also not too late to sponsor us … least now you know we've done it - Just go to http://www.justgiving.com/dolphindogwalk

And yes … we did get a paw massage on our return … and a huge dinner with sweeties as dessert!!

So THANKS again everyone … until the next time!!

Woof woof ….