Blog

It was very calm weather for our photo-ID survey yesterday which resulted in 11 encounters with bottlenose dolphins.  We took advantage of the great conditions to train both Becky and Rachael in taking photo-ID pictures.  Photo-ID is really about understanding the dolphins’ behaviour and trying to predict where they are heading and where they will surface next rather than being a great photographer.  But a good understanding of the right settings for the camera definitely helps.  Often taking high quality photo-ID shots where the…

It was a busy day out on the water yesterday for Tim, Becky, Enrico and myself.  Not only did we carry out our regular photo-ID survey but we also deployed some acoustic equipment - two hydrophones (underwater microphones).  One called a CPOD that can detect the echolocation clicks of dolphins and the other an SM2 that records all the dolphins’ vocalisations including clicks and whistles.  This equipment allows us to understand how often…

Despite the fog yesterday we had a short photo-ID trip to take advantage of the calm weather.  We encountered four dolphins just south of the Sutors of Cromarty.  One of them was #79 Midnick.  She is one of the original individuals identified when the University of Aberdeen started studying these dolphins in 1989.  Although we have only seen her with 1 calf she often spends time with other female dolphins, especially Jigsaw (#30).  Midnick has been seen right across the range of this east coast…

Tim, Becky and I made an early start this morning to squeeze in our first photo-ID trip of the year before the heavy rain.  It was a beautiful and calm morning although very cold.  We wore so many layers that our drysuits were nearly bursting and even had to put on waterproof coats, hats, gloves and scarfs to try and keep warm.  However, it was all worth it as we had encounters with two groups of dolphins. One smaller…

 

At the MASTS Annual Science Meeting in September 2012, there were presentations from three Lighthouse Field Station researchers, and Ewan and Paul recorded a podcast detailing their research on Scottish marine predators. These podcasts have now been made available online.

Ewan, discussing his work on northern fulmars and interaction with fisheries.

Listen here: www.tinyurl.com/coboyfg 

Paul, talking about the impact of anthropogenic underwater noise on marine mammals

Listen here: http://tinyurl.com/bvfgkjn

Lucy and Ewan attended a workshop at the Dutch marine research institute IMARES on the island of Texel, to assist with the dissection of beached fulmars. Since the early 1980s, a study of fulmar corpses has revealed the extent of plastic ingestion in the marine environment. Nearly every fulmar analysed has some plastic in its stomach, despite efforts to reduce plastic in our seas and a European target that states that less than 10% of birds should have more than 0.1g of plastic inside them.

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We started the New Year with screenings of Ryan Wood's short film "Dark Light" on the Lighthouse. Ryan captured some amazing images of the aurora borealis during his recent residency in Iceland, and shared them with us while he was visiting Cromarty over Christmas and Hogmanay. You can read more about his work here and see the vidoe on YouTube.

This winter we have contributed a window display as part of the advent exhibition ‘Highland Window on the World’ at the Hugh Miller Museum, Cromarty. The display, illustrating a little about our work at the Lighthouse and the animals we study, will be in the cottage window on Church Street on the 14th December.  All the advent window displays will be set-up within the Hugh Miller Cottage, free for all to view, on Saturday 15th and 22nd of December.

Congratulations to Holly Fearnbach who successfully defended her PhD Thesis on “Individual-based population assessment for cetaceans: using photographs to infer abundance, demography and individual quality”. Holly studied under our split degree programme whilst working for NOAA in the US, and was co-supervised by John Durban in her studies of killer whales in the North Pacific and bottlenose dolphins in the Bahamas. Her examiners were Christophe Guinet of CNRS and Xavier Lambin from Aberdeen. Her thesis can be downloaded here. 

Some of the images taken by David Taylor, events co-ordinator for the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, can be found on his flickr site following his visit to Cromarty this week.  

After having recently moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where her husband Graeme has taken up a postdoctoral position at Colorado State University, Line was asked to give a departmental seminar on her PhD and postdoctoral research.  The majority of her talk focused on the individual-based study of harbour seals that Paul and Line developed in Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve.  Line explained how she investigated survival, reproduction and variations in the timing of pupping, and how these insights have given us a better…

The terrible September weather has resulted in only 2 photo-ID trips this month.   Our first trip was overshadowed by the Beaufort sea state 3 wind, our maximum limit for our photo-ID trips, to ensure we spot and can get good photographs of the dolphins.  By the end of our long day out on the water we had only spotted 1 dolphin and it was a very wet and discouraged crew of Tim, Rachael, Mairi (our volunteer) and I that headed back to…

The Lighthouse Field Station was well represented last week at the Marine Alliance for Science & Technology Scotland (MASTS) Annual Science Meeting at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh.  Ewan gave a talk on his tracking work with fulmars on Eynhallow and St Kilda, Kate spoke about assessing the impacts of seismic surveys in the Moray Firth, and Paul talked about the challenges of assessing population level consequences of disturbance.

MASTS facilitates and encourages collaboration between the institutions involved in marine science in Scotland, from deep sea biology to the renewable energy…

Over 1000 people visited the Field Station in the first week of September to view Mark Lyken and Strephen Hurrel's new art works, and attend the series of talks and schools workshops we organised with IOTA as part of their Sublime Programme.

Events were also covered on STV and BBC Alba  news, and you can listen again to a feature about the work on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Saving Species" that was transmitted on 18th September.

The programme of events linked to Stephen Hurrel and Mark Lyken’s residencies has now been finalised. Between the 1st and 9th September we’ll have a series of activities in Cromarty that link this collaboration with IOTA and the British Science Festival in Aberdeen, including installations, sound works, talks, tours and evening projections.

View the trailer  on YouTube from the link below, and download the full programme here.

Either the wind or rain (or sometimes both) has kept us off the water for a couple of weeks but despite the threat of a few showers we headed out for only our 2nd photo-ID trip in August.  Tim, Rachael and I were joined by Becky for her first dolphin photo-ID survey – quite different from her normal job of harbour seal photo-ID.  At first all we saw were birds - everywhere we looked there were thousands of gulls, razorbills, guillemots,…

Sadly yesterday was my last photo-ID trip after my 6 weeks stay here at the Lighthouse to work on my master thesis and help with fieldwork.  The trip started off well as there was very little wind which is great for spotting dolphins and we saw a big group less than 5 minutes into our trip. The dolphins were spread out over a large area and were chasing fish which made it hard work for Barbara to photograph them.  However, it was great…

Despite the risk of a strong sea breeze we couldn’t resist the beautiful sunny and calm day yesterday, so we headed out on the boat early and took our final photo-ID trip of July.  Tim, Hera and I were joined by Charlie Phillips from WDCS, to take some videos of the dolphins.  With a group of dolphins spotted almost immediately at the Sutors of Cromarty the day was off to a great start.  We then headed to Chanonry Point, where Charlie normally…

All the harbour seal pups at Loch Fleet have now weaned, meaning an end to Rebecca’s daily photo-ID surveys that started 10 weeks ago.  Although, Rebecca won’t miss the long drive in the transit van from Cromarty to Loch Fleet she is going to miss seeing all the seals and their pups.  The last pup to be weaned was that of Nine (ID # 172) and the picture shows another of the weaned pups posing for his (or her) ID…

With the improving weather Tim, Rachael, Hera and I were able to catch up with two photo-ID trips this week – one in the inner Moray Firth around Cromarty and the other along the south coast of the firth to Lossiemouth.  In the inner firth we had some useful encounters with dolphins we hadn’t seen since the start of the summer.  We also saw our first porpoise calf of the year.  Then on our Lossiemouth trip we encountered a whole different group of…

With over 60 dolphins spotted, encounters from the Sutors of Cromarty to Chanonry Point and deployment of another hydrophone it was a long day out on the boat on Friday.  We were on the water for 10 hours and it was a very tired, but excited crew that arrived back in Cromarty late Friday night.  Not only had we seen an exceptional number of dolphins in one day but we also had some great encounters – some dolphins were travelling…

The University of Aberdeen is intending to begin deployment of 54 moorings in the Moray Firth, from the week beginning Monday 16th July.  The moorings will contain acoustic loggers, which detect the presence of porpoises and dolphins.  The data collected will be used to investigate the responses of porpoises to pile driving. 

Please note that some of these moorings will have no surface markers. Click here for further details and the location of all moorings. These will be updated with the as-laid positions of the…

With Tim on holiday for a couple of weeks, during our photo-ID trip this week I was skipper on the boat for the first time this year.  This meant I was responsible for ensuring the safe operation of the boat, the safety of everyone on board and driving the tractor and trailer to launch the boat (always fun!).  With our all female crew, including Rachael and Hera, the trip went very well.  This was at least partly due to all the training we…

The first of the harbour seal pups are now being weaned at our study sand bank in the Loch Fleet Nature Reserve.  Harbour seal pups suckle for approximately 4 weeks, after which their mum can leave them quite abruptly.  The birth date and lactation period of harbour seals is one of the research areas our study is focussing on.

Rebecca, our new Fieldwork Technician, has been visiting Loch Fleet daily at low tide since the end of May to…

Tuesday morning saw Tim, Rachael, Enrico and I up and out on the water early to try and catch the calm weather.  We were somewhat successful and had two encounters with small groups of dolphins before we recovered one of Enrico’s hydrophones at the Sutors. Then it was back to Cromarty for a change of crew to give our resident artists, Stephen and Mark, a practical idea of what we do.  Unfortunately, the wind had picked up, but we persevered and…