ORCA's Weblog

And Finally…

orcaweb — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:35:01 +0000

Today is a sad day. I have been packing away the Wildlife Centre for the winter, given my final presentation and had my last deck watch. We have had a great season with lots of cetacean sightings. Below are a couple of maps that show the animals that we have spotted this year. There was a beautiful sunset this evening, on a flat calm sea and two harbour porpoises swimming into the night. A wonderful ending to a great season.

We have given presentations about ORCA and the wildlife of the North Sea to over 3,200 people and had many more visiting the Wildlife Centre over the last 6 months. I would like to thank all the staff of the King Seaways and DFDS office in Royal Quays for all their help and support during that time. Without everyone’s help, the Education programme would not have been possible.

Bye for now…

Richard – Wildlife Officer

Dark nights and stormy weather

orcaweb — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:04:35 +0000

So the last week has been a bit stormy on the King Seaways. As the Wildlife Officer I have been stoically watching out for cetaceans, but alas I have only had 2 sightings of harbour porpoises in the last 7 days. The nights are starting to draw in now, drastically diminishing the time available to see these beautiful animals, but I shall be here till the 30th September keeping watch and being ever hopeful.

Richard – Wildlife Officer

Stormy seas and minke whales.

orcaweb — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:48:44 +0000

After a fantastic start to my two weeks on board, we had a few days of quite stormy weather, with high winds and quite a lot of swell! So for a few days I was stuck inside and didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. However it has calmed down a bit since, and I was lucky enough to spot a minke whale as it surfaced on the morning of the 10th September. This was just over an hour outside of Tynemouth. The minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) is the smallest of the rorqual whales, reaching about 9-10m in length, and is the only large whale species that is commonly spotted in the North Sea. They can be quite difficult to spot, as their blow is quite small, and can only be seen in very calm conditions. Although they are usually solitary animals, they sometimes travel in pairs, and large groups of them can be seen in areas where there is an abundance of food. In the Northern Hemisphere, minkes feed on small schooling fish (such as capelin, herring, pollack and cod) and also on krill. Unfortunately, having forgotten to pack my camera, I was unable to attempt to photograph this particular whale. However I did get some nice snaps of the varying weather we have had recently using my phone camera!

This is now my last few days on the King Seaways, as I hand over to Richard on Wednesday. Apparently we are expecting some stormy weather, but I am still hoping for a bit of calm sea and some good sightings before I leave.

Happy wildlife spotting!

Isabelle

ORCA Wildlife Officer

DFDS King Seaways

Plenty of porpoises…

orcaweb — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 20:20:50 +0000

After being told by Richard that he had had hardly any sightings during the last two weeks of August, I was not expecting to see much on my last shift on the King Seaways. I could not have been more wrong! It has been the best 5 days on the ship I have had! I must have seen close to 70 Harbour Porpoises over those 5 days, which is absolutely fantastic! Just last night I saw at least 21, this morning I saw 8, and this evening I saw 25. This is probably due to the beautifully calm weather we have had over the last few days, which has made for excellent sighting conditions. I am hoping that the sea state will remain as calm for at least another few days, and also hoping that we might spot a few Minke whales as well! Passengers have been so excited to see the porpoises, which has been lovely. It’s really nice to be able to show people on the ship that there really is amazing wildlife in the North Sea!

Isabelle Sikora

ORCA Wildlife Officer, DFDS King Seaways

Sooty Shearwaters

orcaweb — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:20:57 +0000

Well, it has been a slow 2 weeks, with only 7 sightings of harbour porpoises and no other cetaceans. The weather has been against us on the King Seaways with storms driving through most of the last week. On the plus side, the storms did bring in the first of this year’s sooty shearwaters off the Northumbrian coastline. They are just arriving back in the Northern hemisphere after breeding in New Zealand, Western Australia or the southernmost part of South America.

See here for more information and photos about these amazing birds: http://www.arkive.org/sooty-shearwater/puffinus-griseus/image-G28300.html

I’m off the ship for 2 weeks now and have just handed over to Isabelle. I hope she has better luck than I had.

Richard – Wildlife Officer

Where have all the White-beaked Dolphins gone?

orcaweb — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:38:04 +0000

I’m back on board the ship now for a couple of weeks. It has got a bit quieter on board in terms of sightings so I thought I would write a bit about the numbers of White-beaked Dolphins we’ve seen this year.

The number of sightings of white-beaked dolphins has decreased dramatically compared to last year’s observations (where dolphins were seen every day throughout June). Interestingly, this year has also been a record year for spotting white-beaked dolphins along the coast just north of Newcastle. So why were we not seeing them from the ship? Well white-beaked dolphins are a cold water loving species. One theory is that the warm spring brought the sea surface temperature south of Newcastle above the preferred level for white-beaked dolphins (around 12-14⁰C). Female white-beaked dolphins come to the Northumberland coastline in June and July to give birth, they like the slightly warmer waters to their usual cold Scottish habitat, but obviously not too warm. This could also explain why sightings increased just north of Newcastle where the temperatures would be slightly lower. Therefore, the distribution of their preferred water temperature for calving was more restricted this year.

Distribution of white-beaked dolphin sightings from the King Seaways between the 2nd June and 20th July 2011, where the green dot = white-beaked dolphin sightings.

I’ll update you with more sightings soon

Richard Bull
Senior Wildlife Officer

August on the King Seaways.

orcaweb — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:38:20 +0000

Since last Saturday when I returned to the King Seaways we have had continuously calm sailing. Sometimes there has been a bit of swell, but only up to about 2 metres, and the worst sea state can’t have been more than a 4! This has meant that we have had very good spotting conditions, and have had a number of sightings of harbour porpoises, and a few dolphins that were possibly common dolphins. It has also been a very good few days for birds, especially sailing into Newcastle in the mornings. I saw my first sooty shearwater two days ago, which was fantastic, and even managed to take a few pictures.

That morning I saw 12 different species of seabirds, including great and arctic skuas, sandwich and common terns, as well as the usual gannets, guillemots and other species that we spot regularly. Watching a great skua trying to mob a gannet was especially interesting!

During our last three trips leaving Newcastle, passengers have told me that they have spotted a minke whale not long after leaving the port, so, I am going to experiment by changing the deck watch time to see if I can spot it too. So watch this space for news of another minke sighting (hopefully!)

Isabelle

ORCA Wildlife Officer, DFDS King Seaways

Thresher Shark

orcaweb — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:56:54 +0000

At 20:10 last night on the way out from Amsterdam, a Thresher shark breached twice off the starboard bow of the ship. It was absolutely amazing and luckily 6 passengers were there to witness it. They are very easy to identify as they have very long pectoral fins and whiplike tail. Unfortunately the appearance was so brief that I wasn’t able to get a photograph.

The Common Thresher Shark is found globally, even in cold waters. This species is especially vulnerable to fisheries exploitation because it prefers to live close to the surface (within 200 metres or so). Thresher sharks are solitary creatures which keep to themselves and their numbers have decline rapidly in recent years. A really great sight from the King Seaways!

Richard – Wildlife Officer

Guillemots

orcaweb — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:22:31 +0000

Well, it seems that there are still a lot of guillemots about. I haven’t seen this number since the 18th June 2011, when all the ‘Jumplings’ were in the water paddling away to Norway. Guillemots are not like most other birds. Their chicks don’t wait around at the nest site until they can fly (for fear of being eaten by Gulls). Instead, a few days after hatching, they will jump off the cliff on which they were born, often falling a few hundred meters until they reach the sea far below (sometimes after being pushed a lot by the parent bird). The Guillemots that we see from the King Seaways nest on the Farne Islands just 30 minutes drive North of Newcastle. This morning, I managed to get some good, if not a bit shaky, footage of the remaining guillemots as they swam past or under the ship.

Unfortunately, I cant upload videos on to this blog, so you can veiw it here http://www.facebook.com/pages/ORCA/190122761022671 on the ORCA facebook page

Richard – Wildlife Officer

Calm Sailing.

orcaweb — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:47:59 +0000

My last full day on board the King Seaways this month was beautifully calm. Both in the morning as we sailed into Ijmuiden, and also that evening as we headed back to England. During our morning deck watch I spotted 5 harbour porpoises, 2 of which were surprisingly close to the port! In the evening we spotted a further 9 harbour porpoises in total. There was a group of about 5 that were feeding quite far ahead of the ship. Unfortunately as the ship got within about 200m they swam away, but not before a lot of the passengers out on deck got a good look at them. A few minutes later we spotted two more porpoises, and I even managed to get a photo.

A little while later a flock of common scoter flew past, which was a nice end to the evening’s deck watch, and my two weeks on board.

Hopefully Richard will continue to have good weather and exciting sightings over the next few weeks.

Isabelle

Wildlife Officer, DFDS King Seaways.