Porpoises, dolphins and whales, oh my!

What an amazing first three days of surveying we have had! Let me start by introducing my-self. My name is Gena and I am working with Kevin over the summer as a research assistant. During my first two weeks in Gardenstown, despite daily watches from the shore, I had not seen a thing, and I was subsequently beginning to think Kevin had lured me all the way from Australia with false accusations of an abundance of wildlife in the Moray Firth. However, the first night the volunteers arrived we spotted a pod of dolphins from the shore travelling west. “Wow” I thought “There really are dolphins here!” This was a great sign for the following day!

On the first day of surveying we found the pod of bottlenose dolphins we had seen from shore the previous night. It was a difficult group to study, as the animals were very spread out, but we managed to identify 20 individuals including 5 calves. However, we estimated 30+ individuals in the pod.

On the second day we encountered 3 minke whales on our first off-shore survey route. The most extraordinary encounter happened after lunch when a ‘friendly’ minke found us! This particular whale seemed really interested in us, and after a short while of sampling the animal's behaviour, we realised that we were not conducting any sort of focal follow ourselves as the young whale was clearly following US! This turned into a great opportunity to try an attempt at a suction tag attachment. So there was a big rush to get the tagging device set up - absolute mayhem on a small boat with people spotting for the whale, someone trying to drive, someone trying to photograph the animal, AND trying to set up the tagging device and pole as well! We didn’t end up getting close enough in the end, even despite our attempts to speak in whale (Finding Nemo style), which seemed to work in the beginning.

On the third day we started on an inshore dolphin survey route to try to find the same group incompletely recorded earlier in the week. We found them on a zero seastate ocean in Cullen Bay, and witnessed some remarkable social behaviour with the calves being babysat by a young adult whilst their mothers hunted further out to sea. The calves were very confident with us and joined us repeatedly for a ride on the bow of the boat. This time we managed to record everybody in the group and were pleased to see all 6 of our newborn calves from 2009 and survived their first winter in the North Sea.




After lunch, we headed offshore again to look for more minke whales, and not only did we find them, but we also met another very friendly, curious whale. After several close pass by's, we were amazed to witness this magnificent animal put on an amazing display of no less than 6 full breaches right in front of our boat of which we managed to record some fantastic shots. For the rest of the day we were all in awe of the amazing experienced we had shared together.

Stay tuned for another exciting instalment from the CRRU team in the Moray Firth soon...personally, I can't wait for more!!!

Didn't we have a lovely time!

Finally, back in the UK and on my way up to Scotland after our very exciting time with the Pink Dolphins of Trang. Still working on the datasets, but during our time on the project we logged a total of 10 encounters and an impressive 900 km's of boat survey effort!






















Group sizes were found to range from 2 to 16 animals, with a mean school size of 5.5. Approximately 85% of the animals encountered were recognisable, and at present we are at 36 identifiable individuals from a cumulative total of 55 animals.

More to follow soon, and a paper to boot too, but in the meantime I would like to express my personal thanks to everybody who made this project possible - to the Nature Resort in Haad Yao, Kanjana and colleagues from the Phuket Marine Biological Center, Thanida and Nantarika from Chulalongkorn Unversity, Bangkok, and to the 2010 team Olivia, Brenda, Hayley, Anton, Calvin, Becky, Alex, Na, Mek, our captain Ban Bow and Lindsey and Kat in absentia. Thank you everyone for making this time so successful and memorable! In haste, Kev

Last days in Trang...

Can't believe we are already at the end of our 2 week pilot study. This afternoon we head out to sea for our very last boat survey, but we have had an exceptional time with dolphins and dugongs galore. Working on data this morning, so full stats to follow, but just a quick line to say thank you to all the team here for your very hard work and support its been an unforgettable experience!!! K

Radar vision!

thanks for all the posts guys - awesome!

I still haven't met anyone who can beat Kev's long distance radar mammal spotting vision!

Pine and I radioed a sea turtle sighting once - turned out to be a seal, never lived it down!

Thank you to all of you for volunteering and getting this project off the ground - Keep blogging!

Hi from Olivia!

After the excitement of yesterday, we set off in the morning with high expectations. It was also Alex’s last day and we had gathered up 2 more volunteers to help out – a Hungarian couple staying at the resort – so we really wanted another good showing from the dolphins. We started eagerly but by the time we stopped for lunch we had seen nothing, not even the swirling splash of a dugong, and we were beginning to worry we would have our first day with no sightings. After lunch we experienced our first storm at sea, watching it approach from the distance and pass quickly overhead. We were close to giving up on the dolphins and had started heading for home when suddenly Kevin spotted a promising silhouette in the distance. Sure enough, at the last minute, we had another group of dolphins! A sense of excitement spread throughout the boat and soon the boatman drew alongside them and we were all playing ‘count the dolphins’ – a surprisingly difficult game even with the relatively small numbers we’re finding here. We eventually agreed on eight; 4 adults, 1 sub-adult and 3 calves. We stayed with them for some time and, for the first time, the sea was clear enough to see them beneath the water. They were close to the shore and watching them breaching through the clear water with the sandy beach in the background was a truly beautiful and thrilling sight. After enjoying them for a while we headed for home feeling elated and happy to have been able to share our enthusiasm with our Hungarian friends. The only downside is that Kevin has now crept ahead of Alex and me, with 3 sightings to our 2, and was quick to reclaim his title as chief dolphin-spotter!

Think Pink...

Trang pink dolphin expedition - Survey Day 5

Hi, my name is Hayley. I’m arriving a little late, to say the least, after some small trouble in the UK involving the Icelandic volcano eruption - you may have heard about it! I was supposed to leave Friday 16th from Heathrow Airport but I was cancelled twice, at this point I had given up. I very randomly on the off chance contacted my airline on the Wednesday as the flights were going again and got a call back that afternoon telling me that I was on a flight the next morning!

My trip to Thailand was therefore surreal, as within 12 hours of the phone call I was on my way to the airport, the journey went very well with no more problems and I was at the Resort with the rest of the group by Friday evening. I was given a very warm welcome from everyone here and was amazed to find myself sleeping in Thailand and getting ready for the following day for my first pink dolphin survey trip.

On my first day out, I was amazed at how many Pink dolphins we managed to find! We saw two groups, one of 6 and later one of 16, and this was apparently the best day the team had had to date, so I felt so grateful to be here and on such a wonderful flat sea.

I just wanted to say thank you to Beverley for helping me during the manic trip out, and also to say to Lindsey and Kat that I’m really sorry you can’t be here and that we are all thinking of you. I look forward to getting out again and seeing what else our surveys will bring…