Sunday 21 May 2017

Training Day with A Strumble Bonus

Today was a traing day for some new volunteers on the Porpoise fin ID project. We started at 11.15 with Anna opening the course followed by Chantelle and then myself doing the behaviour and photography side of things. After the talk was over we went to the breakwater to show them the layout and hopefully to see if there were any Bottlenose about. Sadly they were'nt so we headed off to Strumble for a snack lunch and further observation training. Everybody soon got into the swing and sighted a group of porps feeding off to the NW. We watched them moving with the tide flow feeding as they did so and as they came closer some of the volunteers had a chance to use the camera and practice tracking the fast moving porps. While this was going on I was perched behind my lens and was delighted to see an animal that we knew well and had seen before. A result I thought, and quite timely as this was the whole purpose of training up the volunteers to capture this sort of activity. In the group of five or so animals lay another surprise as I suddenly spotted split fin, another of our previously sighted porps. A bonus indeed to have five or six animals there of which two were distinctive returners. Job done and a great day all in all.