Strumble dairy 12/9/23...

 Weather: WSW2 sunny spells sea state 2 good visibility 14.00-16.00.

I copped onto a couple of Risso’s as soon as I looked through my bins. The sea was calm the viz’ great and they then disappeared without trace.
A big feeding mob of mainly gulls along with auks was drifting slowly east on the tide. I focused the scope on them getting the briefest view of what looked like a small shearwater, which disappeared within the mob of feeding gulls without a trace.
A distant arctic-type Skua passed at about five miles, did not disappear, but might as well have as it was not much more than a speck.
And then a pod of at least three Risso’s turned up near where I lost the first two, about an hour later, they were distant and not giving great views but at least they sporadically surfaced as the progressed, west to east.
As I tracked them A shearwater passed by in the opposite direction, a Manxie, but welcome. As the Risso’s went out of view I got a distant group of 30’ish commons in the scope which followed the same path, which then put me onto a very dark Balearic Shearwater heading west!
An interesting and intriguing couple of hours!
Sorry no pic's

Strumble diary 10/3/22

 



The porpoises were showing off today for the Thursday group L-R Rose, Dawn, Carol, Ben and Fran.
The icing on the cake was a brief sighting of a Risso's Dolphin. Another observer Steve who had been watching around the corner also saw a pod od C 10 Common Dolphins with a Risso's. I would put a very large bet on that we were the only ones to see three different species of Cetacean within an hour, anywhere around the UK coast! 

Strumble Diary 7/11/21

 Speaking to George Mee last evening, he told me he and others had seen two pods 2+6 Risso's at Strumble in the morniong.

Risso's Magic from Lorna Richter

 Dear Ken via Seatrust Wales,


I hope these pictures reach you - we've spoken to you a few times up at Strumble, and finally have some pictures to share! We took these today off the headland between Porthllysgi beach and Porthclais. I'm not sure how many we saw - probably at least 5 swimming in that stretch. We have other pics of dorsal fins too, but this chap was out to impress with a string of about 8 leaps one after the other in a straight line. We have four very delighted children who will now probably expect this on all coast path walks!

We love seeing the updates on your blog and will say hi again next time we're at Strumble





Strumble Diary 25/7/21

 I arrived at 11 am to find Mair already there but only just with a clean sheet!



We started scanning, I was using my scope and managed to spot six porpoises in the distance the tide was just on the ebb and we were hoping for plenty of action but it was hard digging them out.with only a couple of distant record shots 





Mair made a fantastic spot of a pod of about 20 Common Dolphins with calves which  I  struggled to get on with the scope! They kept coming in from the west passing us at about a couple of miles.. Sorry no pic's of them but it was the highlight of a pretty dour watch. Nice weathefr and nice company so not complaining! .

Winter months opening hours for Ocean Lab

Opening hours are from 10;00 am to 3:45pm
We are working on updating this at the moment and should have more stuff up by the New Year!