After a week of office work due to the windy weather, Tim, Rachael, Enrico and I caught up with 2 photo-ID trips this week. On Monday we searched from Balintore to Chanonry Point, although only saw 7 dolphins. So on Wednesday we went as far as Kessock and despite a slow start by the end of the day we had encounters with over 25 animals, and photographed a number of individuals for the first time this year. This included #30 Jigsaw, #64 Happy…
Great weather for photo-ID
24 May 2012, 13:31:37 by Barbara Cheney
2nd photo-identification trip of the year
11 May 2012, 16:33:41 by Barbara Cheney
Despite all the rainy and windy weather, the sun did come out this week and gave us an opportunity for our 2nd photo-ID survey of the year. However, the dolphins were not quite so co-operative! About 25 dolphins were dispersed across a big area, from the Sutors of Cromarty to Balintore. This made it very difficult to keep track of them and ensure we got a photograph of each individual. But the unusually clear waters allowed us to see some…
Landward
11 May 2012, 16:16:16 by Barbara Cheney
Tessa and I spent Tuesday afternoon filming with Dougie Vipond for Landward. We took a trip out on the Ecoventures wildlife watching boat and after a tense couple of hours of no dolphin sightings, we eventually spotted two near the Sutors of Cromarty. We discussed our recently published SNH report and our research over the past two decades monitoring bottlenose dolphins in this area. The programme will be shown on BBC2 on the 25th May.
New SNH Report Published
04 May 2012, 10:43:10 by Barbara Cheney
Our latest Site Condition Monitoring Report for the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation has just been published by Scottish Natural Heritage. Drawing on over two decades of research by the Universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrews, we present the first robust evidence of long-term trends, status and use of the Moray Firth SAC by bottlenose dolphins. We analysed photo-identification data collected between 1990 and 2010 and the results suggest that the bottlenose dolphin population on the east coast of…
1st Bottlenose Dolphin Photo-identification Trip of 2012
03 May 2012, 18:04:33 by Barbara Cheney
This week, we braved the cold weather to carry out our first photo-ID trip of the year, and were rewarded with four encounters with small groups of dolphins. Our regular team of Tim Barton, who skippers our boat, and myself, taking the photo-identification pictures, were joined by intern Tessa and MSc student Daniel. Both took great notes and not only survived but also seemed to enjoy their first experience of bottlenose dolphin photo-ID in chilly Scotland. We saw six dolphins that we know…
Artists at the Lighthouse
13 April 2012, 12:24:36 by Barbara Cheney
(image: Mark Lyken) (image: Stephen Hurrel)
After much deliberation Inverness Old Town Art and the University of Aberdeen are delighted to announce the recipients of the Sublime Artist residency are Stephen Hurrel and Mark Lyken. The artists will spend this summer working alongside the ecologists at the Lighthouse Field Station in Cromarty in…
European Cetacean Society Presentations
29 March 2012, 19:19:51 by Paul Thompson
Barbara, Enrico & Paul attended the 26th European Cetacean Society Conference in a very sunny Galway this week. Enrico and Barbara both presented papers during the first day of the meeting. Enrico's talk focussed on work that he carried out in St Andrews on disturbance to cetaceans in the Bahamas, while Barbara presented her analysis of two decades of dolphin photo-ID surveys in the Moray Firth.
Fieldworker required for Harbour seal study
29 March 2012, 10:36:49 by Paul Thompson
We are seeking an experienced fieldworker to work on 4 month summer contract from mid May. The post is to support individual-based studies of harbour seal ecology in the Moray Firth, NE Scotland. After an initial training period, they’ll be required to carry out daily shore-based photo-identification surveys of harbour seals in Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve from the end of…
MASTS Retreat
27 March 2012, 14:26:25 by Isla Graham
Ewan recently attended the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS; www.masts.ac.uk) Postgraduate Retreat in Aviemore, bringing together all MASTS-funded PhD students from institutes around Scotland to share ideas, learn new skills and get to know each other in a more relaxed and sociable atmosphere. In addition to a handful of student presentations, talks were given by visiting speakers, including several who had previously obtained PhDs in marine science but had subsequently moved away from academia into policy-making,…
Lighthouse Research Day
24 February 2012, 15:00:24 by Barbara Cheney
On the 20th and 21st of February, 20 marine predator researchers from the Environmental Research Institute in Thurso, the University of St. Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit, SMRU Ltd., Durham University and the University of Aberdeen’s main campus gathered in Cromarty for our Lighthouse Research Day. We heard a range of interesting and thought provoking talks on subjects ranging from seabird tracking studies to diet analyses of seals and from population dynamics to research on the effect of human activities on marine mammals…
Ewan's Antarctic Expedition
07 February 2012, 14:59:33 by Barbara Cheney
Ewan has just returned from a month long expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula, aboard the 49ft yacht "Mina2". Previously Ewan worked on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia as a field biologist, but this was his first visit to the Antarctic proper. Highlights of the trip involved a swim in the volcanically-heated water at Deception Island; many marine mammal (seal and whale) sightings, including an hour spent in the company of two minke whales traveling slowly with the boat; and the fantastic seabird-watching…
Sublime Artist Residency
28 January 2012, 13:35:06 by Paul Thompson
This week we advertised for an artist in residence to come and work at the Lighthouse over the summer. The Sublime Artist Residency is a partnership with Inverness Old Town Art, and is funded by Creative Scotland.
The 3-6 month residency’s main aim is for an artist/ musician/ film-maker to participate in our research and develop a series of arts works that will increase awareness of the marine environment. We’re looking forward to working with IOTA to hear other perspectives on our work,…
UNESCO World Heritage Site Conference
22 January 2012, 15:03:46 by Paul Thompson
Work from the Lighthouse and MASTS colleagues was presented at the recent UNESCO conference "I know where I'm going: remote access to World Heritage Sites, from St.Kilda to Uluru", which took place in Edinburgh on 23-24 November 2011.
The two-day international conference focused on the potential of new technologies to create high quality, remote-access, visitor experiences for World Heritage Sites and other sites of cultural, historical and natural significance.
Videos of each presentation, including powerpoint images, are now available online from New Media Scotland at
Barbara's Sarasota Fieldwork
11 January 2012, 13:47:32 by Barbara Cheney
Just after the Society for Marine Mammalogy conference I was fortunate to spend 2 weeks working on the Sarasota Dolphin Research Project in Florida with the aim of validating the laser metric technique we have been using to measure the length of bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth. Despite some surprisingly windy and foggy weather, I was able to join 5 photo-ID surveys, had 34 encounters with dolphins and managed to take lots of photos. Working on this over 40 year…
Society for Marine Mammalogy Prize
11 January 2012, 13:35:13 by Barbara Cheney
Line was awarded a prize for the best postgraduate poster at the Society for Marine Mammalogy Conference, Tampa, Florida.
The 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals
11 January 2012, 13:31:41 by Barbara Cheney
Line and Barbara attended the Society of Marine Mammalogy conference in Tampa, Florida at the end of November.
"We had an informative and amazing time meeting scientists and friends from around the world studying a variety of species from humpback whales to bottlenose dolphins and Steller sea lions to bearded seals. Four concurrent sessions kept us busy running from one to the other, so much so that we missed the dolphin and manatee sightings in the harbour beside the conference centre. We did…
Fulmar EcoQO workshop in Holland
07 December 2011, 17:06:05 by Paul Thompson
In early October, Ewan and Lucy attended the 2011 Fulmar EcoQO workshop at the IMARES research institute on the island of Texel, Netherlands. Fulmars have been designated an indicator of ‘good environmental status’ of our seas, and delegates from around Europe and as far afield as Vancouver came to the workshop, led by Dr Jan Andries van Franeker, to learn how to dissect a fulmar, to examine stomach content for plastic fragments. Dr van Franeker’s work has shown that 95% of fulmars…
Fulmar breeding success on Eynhallow
03 October 2011, 17:36:33 by Paul Thompson
2011 turned out to be a poor year for fulmars on Eynhallow. Our colony census on 20th May recorded 91 occupied nests but when we returned on the 9th July, only 24 nests were still occupied. Once into the chick rearing period, birds seemed to fare slightly better, but with only 15 fledglings, this still meant that this year’s overall reproductive success was only 16%. Ten of these chicks were ringed by Ewan Edwards during our final visit of the season in mid-August.