Outer Hebrides

Patience is proving to be our virtue out here on the Isle of Lewis. The old Scottish saying "if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes" is proving to be very true and even looking ahead at the various forecasts doesn't really help as it's hardly ever what they say it's going to be, so we've got to be ready to go at a moments notice! And also be prepared to just sit and wait … for a weather window to appear! However … we can now report on 2 of the best days that we've had since coming to the "Rainbow Isle" - the almost constant mix of rain and sunshine delivers these colourful and magical sights on an almost daily basis.

Day 1; from our land-based watching site at Tiumpan Head.
Over a few hours we were treated to sightings of harbour porpoises foraging close to shore, a minke whale slicing through the calm waters, a basking shark "basking" in the sunshine and two Risso's dolphins patrolling the northern half of our survey area. Again, it was the dreaded midge that eventually drove us off the cliff. There's a very fine balance to be found when it comes to marine wildlife watching in these parts - when the wind is too strong the white-caps on the water prevent us seeing anything, and when the wind drops too much, the midges appear on mass and make a beeline for any exposed piece of skin!



Day 2; from the relative safety (from midges that is) of our research vessel.
We started early, shortly after sun-up, and were hoping for a long-awaited great day at sea! And we were not to be disappointed. A mere 15 minutes from harbour, and not even out the Loch, we came across more porpoises than you could shake a stick at! Everywhere you looked there were little black bodies surfacing - behind, in front, to the right, to the left - it was a virtual porpoise soup! Cutting the engine we sat and listened, and counted, and tried to photograph the normally shy and elusive little porpoises. In stark contrast to their "usual" behaviour, these little guys (and girls) were actively interested in us and made several close swim-by's (cetacean equivalent of a fly-by), surfacing sideways to eyeball us and then diving under the boat at the last minute, only to surface on the other side with their characteristic little "pfff's". One individual appeared to be particularly interested in us and spent most of his/her time just doing circuits around the boat; from a very distinctive scar behind its blow-hole we recognised it as the same individual that we'd seen on 3 previous occasions in the same general vicinity - seems like this is an important or at least favoured, habitat for this chap!





After determining that we had approximately 35 porpoises within 500m of the boat, we decided to move on towards the mouth of the loch, however we didn't get very far before we came across yet another group of porpoises, this time actively engaged in foraging and not the least bit interested in what we were up to. This pod of 15 animals, including a young calf or two, were likely chasing mackerel and indulging in some fishy treats. There was a lot of activity (and lots of white water in their wake), with some animals "racing" at the surface and coming completely out the water as they hunted down their breakfast. Another stark contrast to what the porpoises we'd encountered only 15 minutes earlier were up to!





Soon we were leaving the porpoises behind and heading out into the oily calm waters of the Minch. In parts, not even the slightest gust of wind was present with hardly a ripple in sight - not a day to have been on land - but certainly one to have been on the water! It wasn't long before the cry of "Risso's" went up and the excitement was palpable … this was the first time in our 4 weeks here that we'd come across Risso's when out on the boat! One animal became two, two soon became five and the challenge was on to get shots of all the various dorsal fins before we left them in peace. They headed south, we headed north! But not too far north as we soon spied a wall of rain slowly approaching over land from the north-west, threatening to call an early end to our watery adventure and to avoid finding ourselves in the middle of it, turned tail and headed south, in the direction of home!

And what did we find? More Risso's … this time approaching us from the south. Some of the animals were the same as the ones we'd seen earlier but some of them were "newbies" … including a mother, whom we quickly nicknamed "Stumpy" due to the distinct lack of a dorsal fin (she'd obviously previously suffered at the wrong end of a propellor) and her calf - whose dorsal fin was bigger than hers! The calf was very young, between 1 and 3 months old, which we were able to determine because of the presence of foetal folds - a result of the calf spending its months in the womb, curled up, nose to tail. These folds disappear at different rates in different species; bottlenose dolphins can keep them for 1+ year, while southern right whales lose them within 2 weeks.



One of the most exciting things to come of the day, and our encounter with the Risso's, was that we recognised a few individuals as animals we'd identified last year - showing beyond reasonable doubt that this is an area to which animals are returning year on year … therefore it's important to them, or at least favoured!



As the rain chased us home, to top off a magical day, we spotted a sunfish - the first in our 3 years of surveying the Minch! There is some evidence that these giant circular fish (with elongated fins) are becoming a more regular visitor to Scottish waters - a sign of warming seas?

We've managed to capture some of our marine friends on film this time. Here's a small taster of what we have been seeing:

A couple of harbour porpoises from a big pod of 12 foraging in Loch Erisort.
A basking shark feeding.
Bottlenose dolphins off Tiumpan Head.
Common dolphins from the research boat, outside Stornoway Harbour.
A mixed group of Risso’s and bottlenose dolphins off Tiumpan Head near Stornoway.

Written on behalf of Kila, WDCS Canine Research Assistant.

I heard the words "bird blog" being uttered by the humans and decided it was time to step in and take matters (blog matters that is) into my own paws. Those flying things are all very well, and it has to be said, quite attractive at times, but … i thought perhaps you'd rather hear from me (and my trusty assistant) and what we've been up to since our last post! (If the weather stays as rubbish as it has been, there will be plenty of time for those feathered critters to make an appearance!)

There was one condition to me being allowed to write the next blog, i have to mention the humans last expedition out on the water where they had a rather spectacular encounter with some 20+ harbour porpoises. Apparently they're usually very skittish and camera shy (unlike us!) and getting up close and personal with them is a rare event. So … humans went out on the boat, saw some porpoises, took some pictures, and were very happy! (That enough? Shall we move on? Oh ok … here's some photos for you!)

Anyway, back to the things that really matter to us canines!! Beaches - and the hunt for driftwood, although it has to be said that we've both become rather fond of seaweed of late, there is after all an abundance of it, as opposed to sticks, of which there are few



We've decided to rename this island the "Land of the disappearing beaches" … it's all rather confusing if truth be known. Let me explain - on one of our favourite beaches we're used to having a vast expanse of sand to play on and a very long run down to the water (which does somedays seem to get longer and longer?), then, all of a sudden, we turned up for our usual "walk" only to find the beach had gone! Completely! Not a bit of sand in sight!! As you can imagine we were quite perturbed. The humans tried to explain to us … apparently it's something to do with "Spring" tides, which confuses us even more because we were of the opinion that it was autumn?? But "Spring" tides are the opposite of "Neap" tides … although again i'm confused because i'm not entirely sure what turnips have to do with anything, and i've certainly not found any tatties (potatoes to the non-Scot!) on the beach … all of which reminds me, where's our Haggis?!?





We've been assured that things will get back to normal soon, and in the meantime we've been venturing further afield to visit some of the islands other beaches which don't appear to be affected quite as much!





On one such visit to a "new" beach we were in for a bit of a surprise (well the humans weren't because they'd already been pre-warned by their friend Martin who works for the RSPB but no-one told us)! Harvey and i have become quite the "sniffer-dog" team and have a good track record of finding unusual things on our expeditions (to date we've found a basking shark, Risso's dolphin, white-beaked dolphin, a huge jellyfish and lots of rubbish) but this one took the biscuit - although i do hope he gives it back, we like our biscuits! - and had some really sharp teeth (guess that's how he got the biscuit then?) so although it was sad to find out that he was dead … we possibly wouldn't have ever seen one of his kind alive!! He was … a blue shark! Quite a find i'm told, and rather unusual to have one washed ashore … poor thing. It does make me think twice about skipping into the water but i'm told that his kind don't usually venture into shallow waters so technically we should be safe! And anyway … one must accept that when one dips one's paw into the sea, one has entered an alien environment and is at the mercy of all the creatures that live there!!





The humans continue to hope for good "spotting" weather and today was looking promising so we headed off to the "Head" to see if there were any critters about. Unfortunately those "monster midges" were out in force and Harvey and i thought (and hoped) that our time there was to be short-lived … how wrong were we? A lone Risso's dolphin was spotted swimming back and forth, and every now and then throwing itself clear of the water (perhaps they have marine midgies that it was trying to escape?) and despite being bitten almost constantly (it's like having someone throw pins at you!) the humans decided that they (and us!) had to grin and bear it, at least until the pain became unbearable!!





Right, now my blog is written and i've updated you on the goings on out here on the Western Isles, i'm off to see if they fancy getting out and about for some more fresh air as you never know what our next walk will bring!!

Until the next time … woof!

Sometimes I think we are mad, studying dolphins in the windy blowy gusty west coast of Scotland. But we’ve not completely lost our marbles! Yes, we spend countless hours sitting on headlands waiting for the sea mist to burn off, for the rain to stop, for the white caps to subside as the wind drops OR for a bit more wind to get rid of the midgies (!), but we also have a Plan B…

.. And as we’ve had a few windy days, we’re going to tell you about it!

With the assistance of a few helpful fishermen and the Stornoway Scottish Natural Heritage office, we have deployed a number of acoustic devices off the coast from the most northerly tip of Lewis at the Butt down to Kebbock Head just south of Stornoway (the capital of the Western Isles). These ingenious light-weight devices are called PODs (originally designed as POrpoise Detectors, but now very capable of detecting dolphins too). PODs are better than field researchers in that they are not weather dependent and they can collect data for 24 hours a day (unlike us!) Luckily they can’t take photo-identifications, and our batteries don’t run out, so we still have a role!

PODs are fully automated, static, passive acoustic monitoring systems that detect porpoises and dolphins by recognising the echo-location clicks the animals make to detect their dinner, find their way around and interact with each other (www.chelonia.co.uk). The PODs can tell us which areas porpoises and dolphins favour.





Harbour porpoises vocalise at very high frequencies and their foraging clicks are easy to understand on our PODs. Whilst dolphins are also typically vocal animals, the different species are very difficult to distinguish – and so far since we arrived here on the Isle of Lewis we have seen common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins and Risso’s. There have also been sightings of orcas in the Minch, but not in our patch - yet!



Minke whales are a different kettle of fish – so to speak! Their vocalisations remain little understood. It’s most likely that they are communicating when they are mating elsewhere over the winter, but we don’t know if or how much they communicate when foraging in Scottish waters over the summer months. So we remain dependent on our eyes (and sometimes ears - pphff!) to find Scotland’s most coastal visitors.

Before we leave, we will retrieve our PODs and hope that, after a summer spent bobbing beneath the waves recording the vocalisations of the dolphins, they will help us to unravel which are the favoured habitats of the dolphins and porpoises – which can ultimately lead to better protection.

It’s been a mixed week as far as the weather has been concerned. We’ve been putting our wet weather gear on and packing our sun cream (and ginger nuts), only to be stopped in our tracks by increasing wind or rain or both. But there have been less windy moments, and we’re getting better at judging when to barricade ourselves into the field bothy so as to avoid the midgies!

Our focus is on demonstrating that the Western Isles of Scotland is important habitat that Risso’s dolphins return to year on year. More background information can be found in last years blog. However we also collect data for all other marine species we encounter and where others are working on conservation projects, we will forward this on. A friend up in Ness in the far north of the island sent us photos of a pod of bottlenose dolphins seen there last Friday. This is a species that we encountered off Gairloch off the north-west mainland of Scotland in previous years but not yet here off Lewis…

From our land-based site at Tiumpan Head yesterday we enjoyed our second sighting of Risso’s dolphins since we arrived. We first noticed them because of the breaching animals in front of the lighthouse. We saw fins that were big and typically distinctive and we could see blunt white heads below the surface of the water as they came up to breathe, and so we had no doubt about their identification. But who were those little fellows mixed in with the group? Were they common dolphins – we thought they surely must be as they looked so small when side by side with the Risso’s and their fins were wee in comparison. But closer attention with the binoculars and some expertly taken photographs (!) confirmed that two cheeky bottlenose dolphins (with very white sides) had joined together with the five Risso’s - and they were having a very fun time jumping and splashing about in the shallow water just off the rocks below us!

Nicola made a quick call and soon after, Lewis our skipper brought his boat, RV ‘Fish n’ Trips’ to our slipway and we set off in search of the dolphins that we’d been watching just an hour before.





It was uncharacteristically glassy calm in the Minch, something we were becoming accustomed to on our jaunts out to sea! We came across a few harbour porpoises, which are always a joy to see and the west coast of Scotland is home to the highest densities of this species in the whole of Europe! A close encounter with a foraging minke whale at the entrance of Broad Bay, just past our land-based watching post, was very welcome too. Eventually we pootled along the coast on our way back to base and sighted our first boat-based basking shark since we arrived.





We hung back to give him some space and he followed his plankton dinner in our direction and circled around the boat, giving us incredible views of his enormous size (about 6 metres – longer than our research boat!), his shiny black dorsal and tail fins and his gigantic open mouth. We have heard that the basking sharks have not been seen in good numbers this year, so we were especially pleased to come across this gentle giant.





We then caught a few mackerel for our tea as the Calmac ferry passed ahead of us into Stornoway harbour and we arrived back at the slip way to fading light, tired and happy.

Today we were hoping for a full day out on the boat, but the winds tricked us again, blowing up earlier in the day than we’d anticipated. Plan B was to drive up to Tiumpan Head and this was not in vain. We watched masses of gannets feeding with two distant minke whales and then, a tail fluke came out of the water … a pod of 10 bottlenose dolphins were right in front of us where we had seen the mixed group of dolphins yesterday!





They were clearly feeding, surfacing periodically and often showing their tailstocks before diving down to the depths. They were very difficult to follow, but soon we could see that the pod contained a new calf (with foetal folds!) and a juvenile.





We were enjoying the spectacle and trying to get photo-identification shots for colleagues at SAMS (Scottish Association for Marine Science) and Aberdeen University and wondering if these were the same animals that had been photographed off Ness last week when we received a text that another 75+ bottlenoses were being simultaneously watched up there!

This certainly seems like the place to be if you are a flippered friend. We hope the dolphins stick around as the weather man tells us that we might need to baton down the hatches again, another low is approaching….. Let’s hope the weather holds out for one more day so we can get out on the water and continue our work towards photographing the Risso’s dolphins to see if the same animals return each year…