Kevin Hepworth sent me this email and was happy for me to share.
Ian
Morning all,
Just to let you know that Summer's here in Aberdeenshire. Official!
Was out and about for various watches this weekend. Had not 1, not 2 , but 3 species.
On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the now daily dose of bottlenose were feeding for several hours in Aberdeen Harbour entrance, so nothing out of the ordinary there. Must stop taking them for granted!
After not having seen any porpoise for a while, had a couple on Friday (in the same vicinity as the bottlenose dolphins - a couple of these were our deformed juveniles, so maybe less of a threat?) and some yesterday.
However, it was yesterday morning that really came into it's own. Account below.
After being woken at 3am by our youngest and my not being able to get back to sleep and with barely a drop of wind outside, I decided to go for a watch while the family slept, so it was up and off by 5.45am. I opted for Bullars of Buchan - to check out whether the puffins were in or not as I hadn't been down that end of Aberdeenshire for a while and There's always plenty of ornithological interest if the seas prove quiet. The car had a thin film of soft frost on it, but the day looked to be set to be a cracker and the sea looked inviting with that shimmering oily look to it in the sunrise. Somehow, you just seem to know when certain days are going to be it and this felt like my day.
It started well, had a male sparrowhawk flying alongside the passenger window at eye level for a couple of hundred yards as we descended towards Danestone, then a pair of roe deer off the Parkway and we still hadn't left the city bounds. By the time I was passing the Ythan Estuary, the frost had dissipated, leaving a heavy dew and a thin veneer of mist steaming off the dunes. An otter was visible fishing just upstream of the roadbridge and on any other day I might have stopped longer, but I was on a mission - puffin city!
Up the hill, there were several hundred pinkies feeding in the stubble and a couple of mad April hares (Grampian is often behind the rest of the UK) cavorting across the fields. Pulled into the carpark at B.o.B and boy was it nippy. The sun was now up, the sky was cloudless, the air was still and crystal sharp (I could even clearly see the snowfields 60 miles away on Lochnagar). Luckily, I still had a hat and gloves rolling around in the car boot, so donned those and found 'my hollow' on the cliffs. I have a vantage point 15 feet below the clifftop, which is suitable for everything except an easterly wind. This morning, despite the chill, it was already a suntrap and the winter woolies and jacket were soon discarded as it warmed up. The sea was mirror calm and littered with razorbills and guillemots as far as the eye could see along with several rafts of feeding gulls. It was definitely the day to be here, but then nothing, no fins breaking the surface and not even any puffins either. The self doubt crept in. Should I have stayed in the big city and just watched bottlenose? No I decided, this had to be the place to be. Something would happen and so it proved as a couple of grey seals lazed past at the foot of the cliffs, then a fin broke the surface, a porpoise, always nice to see. One of my favourites really despite their diminutive size and undemonstrative behaviour. The relaxed watching went on, a couple more porpoise, then further out, squadrons of gannets bagan passing. Activity was building up now, two porpoise became three. That's better, then a bit of commotion as a few auks scatteered to the four corners a mile or so out. Nothing doing, then a bit later, more scattering of auks.
There must be something I thought, then a few hundred metres further on, a distinct blow, then a tall fin. It surfaced again three or four times, then disappeared for several minutes. It was difficult to scale the animal and I was veering towards killer whale to be honest and the blood was pumping. Then a couple more animals surfaced a few hundred metres to the south of the first one, still the tall distinct fins, but little or no blow. A few gannets went past, and allowed a more realistic scale to be gleaned. Dolphins then, but what sort? The jizz felt wrong for bottlenose, so I tentatively wrote them out of the equation. What then? I suspected white beaked dolphins, but these would have been incredibly early for us (June onwards is more normal), but I knew Colin up in Caithness had had these recently (and rissos), so you never know.......
I kep watching, another single animal appeared, going south, with the distinct blow and there were two more further out heading south also, one two thirds size of the other. I watched for another hour or so as the animals appeared to be milling about, but still not offering more clues as to their identity. What was apparent was that they must be feeding because although they were apparently lazing about, even logging at times they seemed to be doing deep dives, disapppearing for 6-7 minutes at a time and the blows were bigger and in fairly rapid succession when the animals resurfaced. As six became three and three were lost to sight, they also seemed to drift closer to shore, maybe a kilometre out now. Still silhoutted in the bright sunshine, but at least I was sure they were rissos now as at least two of the three gave me the opportunity to see their distinctive outline as first the head and body appeared, before the fin rose out of the water. My first of the season, not as early as last year's blip when I saw some in March and more in keeping with previous years, although I'd never seen them at all in this region until around four or five years ago. The porpoise count was up to four closer in now and the rafts were breaking up and as my time was up, it was time to head off home as the family would be up.
The mammal theme concluded with a fox outside Newburgh and then it was breakfast and a welcome cup of coffee.
In contrast, yesterday afternoon I played football with my two boys and the acrobatic display from the ubiquitous bottlenose dolphins in the background barely raised an eyebrow. I really need to stop taking them for granted - for many others this would be a once in a lifetime experience.
Kevin
good luck on your quest
