And back to BardSey

Here is the latest update from Bardsey Island. Project leader Pine Eisfeld reporting.

Being on Bardsey has the strangest effect, as time seems only to exist in terms of meal times, but events that people think have happened days ago, actually happened just that same morning or the day before.

I call this phenomenon BOT - Bardsey Other Time.

So, every day, lots of stuff happens here on this little island.

Last week, Wednesday, we suddenly had a spell of calm weather after all the ex-hurricanes and there was a quick changeover on the island. Mark, Vicki and Rob got off and Roger and a car load of food that could feed an army came on. I got moved with all the kit from the Bardsey Island Trust house, Nant, in to the Bird Observatory where Roger joined me.

I quickly trained him up in our protocol to spot whales and dolphins from our site on the North End, explaining why and how we do 10 min. scans with special binoculars, how to record the data, etc. We even saw a couple of Risso's in the distance!

On Thursday morning we rose bright and early to a flat sea and while we were just getting our gear ready, Steve, the Bird Obs warden, shouted "Rissos!". He had spotted them through his scope from the terrace in front of the Bird Obs. We radioed farmer Steve to see if he could take us out in his boat and about 1 hour later, myself, warden Steve and assistant warden Richard were on our way towards the dolphins guided by Roger and Giselle from the terrace.

The first group we met was made up of five adults and a tiny calf. They were very elusive and hard to photograph, but we tried our best and then moved on to another group of three juveniles who were frolicking around the boat. Looking around, there were more Risso's in in the distance leaping out of the water and when we got closer to them, we were met by a group of about ten older adults, all with really white heads surfacing in two by two in perfect synchronicity! This was a stunning sight and everyone on the boat was oohing and aahing and shooting lots of pictures.

The dolphins didn't seem to be going in a particular direction as we saw them constantly changing direction, doubling back on themselves, zig zaging back and forth between the horizon and our boat. We observed some surface rushes and breaching and fast swimming which indicates they were foraging and feeding. Following them, we were about half way to Anglesey and realised we would need to get back as otherwise we would run out of fuel. All in all, we met four subgroups of at least 25 Risso's, but the photo-identification pictures we have taken still need to be analysed to confirm this estimate.

I couldn't stop grinning for the rest of the day!

Roger got to see Risso's in the afternoon from our observation platform at North End. Again they were zig zaging back and forth, going off towards Ireland, then coming back in our direction, but always staying at least 500m off the coast of Bardsey. As we realised this, we stopped our scans, as we were recording the same animals over and over again and just kept watching them and directed the Pedryn, the Countryside Council for Wales' boat which was on the water to get some ID photographs, towards the dolphins.

What a fantastic day!

Pine Eisfeld.

Pine and colleagues scan the sea for Risso's

Who is watching who?