Sunday 16 March 2014

Saturday 15th March: Pendeen Again

As I said yesterday, I wasn't going to have much opportunity to go out birding and with plenty of DIY to crack on with for both my VLW and myself it was another low key day.

Fortunately the weather was much better today though predictably it started off with some good old Pendeen fog. However, by mid morning it had all burnt off leaving a gorgeously sunny day with very little wind. One forgets just how lovely it is down at Pendeen when the weather is really good - I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. I took a little break after lunch to wander about a bit with my camera and managed to take some snaps of the local birds with my superzoom camera. There were some nice Chiffchaffs by the coast path pool, the two Ravens seemed to be chasing a third bird off their territory and I spotted a Peregrine down by the cliffs.




Late afternoon we realised that some of our paint had gone off so I made a quick dash over to PZ while my VLW and L went for a walk down to the local cove. After having bought the paint I checked in on RBA only to discover that the Hoopoe which had been knocking around Polgigga for the last few days had been located and was showing well near the turn-off for Trebehor. I was tempted to make a little detour to see it but it would be a good twenty minutes to get there and then another twenty minutes back to the cottage from there and it was getting late so in the end I just went straight back to Pendeen. There I met the rest of the family on their way back from their walk. They'd seen a pod of Porpoises or Dolphins which they'd followed back to the lighthouse so I went to take a look for myself and soon found them feeding opposite the lighthouse. From what I could tell (though I'm not expert) they were mostly Porpoises though there seemed to be one Dolphin in amongst them. I even managed a few snaps with the superzoom.

I think that this is a Porpoise (please correct me if I'm wrong)


1 comment:

  1. I think your cetacean is a Bottlenose Dolphin. I've never seen or heard of Harbour Porpoises leaping out of the water before (they typically only surface to breath, showing their nostril and dorsal fin before rolling under again). Porpoises are also rounder, chubbier and wont have a conical beak. The dorsal fin is also a big clue, whilst that of a Porpoise looks like an equilateral triangle, dolphins will have a dorsal fin which curves back on itself pointing towards the tail,

    Kind regards,
    Samuel

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