Heading offshore; NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 14/08/18
by martin on 15/08/18 08:11, under North Sea
Yesterday was the first of our 10hr ‘Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic’ sailings for this year and it started well with two Harbour Porpoises at the mouth of the Tyne, then another two a couple of miles further north. As Gannets soared by, Fulmars circled us and Kittiwakes and Lesser Black-backed Gulls tagged along in our wake, two White-beaked Dolphins put in a brief appearance and the swell started to build. By mid-afternoon we’d got heavy rain and then another 5 dolphins spent a couple of minutes bow-riding 🙂
Our August 29th, September 15th and September 22nd 10hr sailings each have two places still available so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place 🙂
Waiting for the weather; Druridge Bay Bespoke Birdwatching 13/08/18
by martin on 15/08/18 07:28, under Druridge Bay
With a fairly awful weather forecast for Sunday, we’d rescheduled Linda and Peter’s day with NEWT around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland for Monday, where the forecast suggested it would rain until lunchtime and then improve after that…
Pre-lunch it was indeed lovely weather for ducks and Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler and Tufted Duck all provided slightly more of an ID challenge than usual with the drakes now in eclipse plumage. Hundreds of Greylag Geese were roosting as an assortment of waders fed around them; Avocet, Lapwing, Dunlin, elegant Black-tailed Godwit, Ruff, Knot, Curlew, Common Redshank and a Greenshank that heralded it’s arrival with a strident “tyeu tyeu tyeu”. Water Rails were nervously dashing in and out of the reed edge as Moorhens fed more boldly away from the edge, Coots demonstrated that they have none of the nervousness of their relatives and Sand Martins, House Martins and Swallows enjoyed a feast of flying insects in the warm, humid air.. Lunch overlooking the North Sea brought Gannets and Fulmars soaring effortlessly over the water. Walking along a narrow hedge-lined track a Sparrowhawk burst through the bushes, carrying a hapless bird as Tree Sparrows delivered a noisy lament for the fallen.
A grand finale; NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 10/08/18
by martin on 13/08/18 07:21, under North Sea
Friday was our final 4hr evening pelagic for 2018 and so far we’d managed to run 12 out of 13 pelagics (with one cancelled due to poor weather conditions), with those 12 producing Bottlenose Dolphin on 2 trips and White-beaked Dolphin on 6. Allan had been out with the boat during the day and, incredibly, they’d been followed back in to the river by a group of White-beaked Dolphins who’d made it as far as the first navigation buoy before turning and heading back to sea 🙂
We checked towards Whitburn first in case they were still hanging around nearby but there was no sign of them so we turned north and followed our usual search pattern. This year we’ve been gathering effort data for the North East Cetacean Project/MARINElife on all of our pelagics so I’m usually in the wheelhouse and carrying out 180 degree scans ahead of the boat and as we passed St Mary’s Island and some impressive storms over Northumberland I spotted a distant fin. Soon there were 12 White-beaked Dolphins feeding around us in small groups as the sky darkened and the first drops of rain began to patter against binoculars and cameras.
Our evening pelagics may be over for another year but our 10hr ‘Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic’ sailings start tomorrow, with a trip that’s been sold out for a while, and we’ve got a couple of spaces available on August 29th, September 15th and September 22nd so get in touch with us today on 01670 827465 to book your place before they’re all taken!
Dolphins in the dark; NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 08/08/18
by martin on 10/08/18 16:29, under North Sea
Wednesday was our penultimate 4hr evening pelagic for this year, and after a few splashes that we couldn’t pin down to anything specific we were heading back south as the sun dipped below the horizon and White-beaked Dolphins appeared 🙂 Light levels were challenging, and didn’t help with achieving the sort of exposure times necessary for fast moving dolphins bow-riding so video proved to be much better and you can see a few minutes by clicking here 🙂
NEWT’s Guide to Bottlenose Dolphins in Northumberland
by martin on 06/08/18 10:28, under Bottlenose Dolphin, North Sea
A lot of our clients are very familiar with Northumberland’s marine wildlife so the question “Where have these Bottlenose Dolphins come from? I can’t remember them being here until the last few years.” is a regular one…
Until 2012 Bottlenose Dolphin was a rare animal in Northumberland waters and when I was researching/writing the cetacean species accounts for ‘Mammals, Amphibians and Reptiles of the North East’ there had only been 11 sightings of 10 or more animals since the first Northumberland record in 1966.
21st October 2012 was the day that everything began to change, with a loose group of ~150 dolphins moving down the coast from Berwick to Newbiggin before vanishing. Small groups broke away and took a liking to Holy Island and Bamburgh, with the group off Bamburgh hanging around through the winter and riding the waves alongside human surfers!
With small groups becoming regular from 2013 we were involved in trying to identify individual animals from photographs by comparing them to the excellent photo-identification catalogue developed by Aberdeen University. That’s when we noticed an interesting pattern – the animals we were seeing were mainly females that were already adults when they were photographed in the Moray Firth in the late 1980’s and had gradually departed the Moray Firth for a life further down the east coast of Scotland around the Firth and the Tay. In the case of the most distinctive dolphin we’ve seen, #116 ‘Runny Paint’ – the dolphin with the extraordinary white stripe along the base of her dorsal fin on the right hand side and four dashes on the left hand side – she’d left Moray in 2001. The ‘proto-colonisation’ of Northumberland seems to have been led by some elderly ladies 
Over the last few years there have been increasing sightings of the dolphins, which now seem to have an extended home range, primarily from the Tay to the Wear but extending as far as Moray and the Yorkshire coast, and it seems likely that there are now calves that have been born in English waters. We don’t know how many dolphins are involved in total, with observer estimates often varying wildly even for a single group, but somewhere between 50-150 is probably in the right ballpark
We’ve seen them on land-based trips, boat trips to the Farne Islands and, of course, on our regular pelagic trips off the Northumberland coast and there’s no doubt that they’re a spectacular addition to Northumberland’s marine fauna but that might not be good news for some of our other cetaceans…
More dolphins and another stunning sunset :-) NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 03/08/18
by martin on 05/08/18 13:27, under North Sea
Friday evening and I was (vaguely) back in action. Three days in hospital had left me drained, but with the sea forecast to be flat calm I couldn’t think of a better way to continue my recovery than by spending a few hours out on the North Sea…
Broken cloud hinted at a good sunset towards the end of the evening, but as we sailed north attention was focused on wherever gulls and Gannets were congregating…and diligent scanning brought a small group of White-beaked Dolphins feeding quietly 🙂 They only had a very brief look at the boat before returning to feeding so we gave them some space and then continued on our way north. The journey back towards the Tyne brought the expected sunset, and it really was a good one 🙂
Weather permitting, we’ve got our final two evening trips this week, and then next Tuesday is the first of this year’s 10hr Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic sailings. Give us a call on 01670 827465, email enquiries@newtltd.co.uk or just click on available dates (August 29th, September 15th, September 22nd) on our online calendar to book your place before they’re all filled.
Posting by proxy; NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 01/08/18
by martin on 05/08/18 11:32, under North Sea
Friday 27th was the first of our 4hr evening pelagics this year to fall victim to the weather, so it was great to see a much better forecast for the start of August…unfortunately I found myself having an unexpected few days in hospital so Steve and Paul organised our clients at the start of the trip and acted as onboard guides 🙂
White-beaked Dolphins put in an appearance off North Blyth and then in the mouth of the Tyne on a dark wet evening, and I was getting notifications about the sightings while laid in a hospital bed 🙂
We’ve still got a few places available on our 10hr Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic sailings on August 29th, September 15th and September 22nd so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place 🙂
Here are a few images of White-beaked Dolphins on sailings over the last few years…
Sunset and Moonrise gallery; NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 25/07/18
by martin on 05/08/18 10:22, under North Sea
Leave a Comment :moonrise, North East Cetacean Project, North Sea, North Sea pelagic, sunset more...
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the south ;-) NEWT’s North Sea Pelagic 20/07/18
by martin on 21/07/18 17:06, under North Sea
With a glassy calm river outside the marina, and a great forecast for the evening (after the rain had passed a couple of hour earlier), we had a dilemma. Allan had seen a group of White-beaked Dolphins in the deep south (or County Durham as its residents call it…) a couple of hours earlier so were we going to change our sailing plan that has served us well for over 20 years and turn right as we passed through the Tyne Piers?
We hadn’t even left the river when a Harbour Porpoise appeared and by then we’d already decided to ‘head south for a bit and turn north if we don’t find anything’. Ten minutes later I was scanning directly ahead and spotted a couple of fins…
All of our 4hr evening pelagics are fully booked now but we’ve still got a few spaces on our groundbreaking Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic sailings on August 29th, September 15th and September 22nd. Those are filling up too, so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place 🙂
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