Tuesday 17 June 2014

Goodbye BND? hello WBD :-)

After a number of near misses, I finally caught up with the Bottlenose Dolphins on Thursday 5th June, and tracked their movement down the coast from Newbiggin to St Mary's Island.  I lost them at that point, as they headed across Whitley Bay.  They seem to have moved quickly south, and were reported from Marsden Rock...unfortunately as a pod of Minke Whales...subsequently 'corrected' to a pod of Pilot Whales :-)  The following day I was guiding for NEWT and took my clients to see the BND as they were just off Church Point.  The dolphins then relocated (again) to the Farne Islands, and the latest sighting report we have was as they travelled north of the islands on Monday 9th June.

Overlapping with the BND were the first few reports of White-beaked Dolphin around the south Northumberland coast; 11 heading N at St Mary's Island at 05:00 on Sunday 1st June (S. Lowe), two off Alnmouth on Tuesday 10th (via S. Wales), 40 off the River Tyne on Thursday 12th (A. Bunney/ORCA) and ~100 off the Tyne on the weekend of 14th/15th (ORCA).

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