Annie and Lydia surveying the pants off the Sound
It’s been a while since our last post, (I know, you’ve missed us) but butter my muffin have we been busy! As you may remember, in our aforementioned post we discussed our upcoming workshops around the Isle in order to increase our base of voluntary surveyors. A big thank you to the Manx Lottery Trust for our funding this project, the workshops went splendidly and we now have 55 new volunteers trained in the art of land-based surveying, with many already out and about collecting data for us! If you missed the workshops, do not fret, we’ll be holding some more in July after TT madness is over and we have all recovered. Keep checking our Facebook for updates!
Judging from Lydia The Great’s fantastically sunburnt knees, the weather in the past couple of weeks has proved that the Isle of Man is basically Ibiza (quality of nightlife, abundance of celebrities and pretty much everything else excluded). The water has been as smooth as the bonnet of a Porsche most days, and with the sun shining we have enjoyed several land-based surveys of late. Last week we spent a glorious morning at Marine Drive where we spotted a pod of 8 Risso’s Dolphins! This is the first proper sighting for Annie, Sarah and I which made it even more exciting and as my good friend Thom Yorke would say ‘for a minute there, I lost myself’. They were being very active, with lots of tail and head slapping as they cruised the waves, making them the highlight of the shift – although they almost got beaten to the top spot by the scrum-diddly-umptious picnic one of our new volunteers, Brenda, brought along to the party. I tell you, offer me a dolphin sighting or eight, a pitta smothered in homemade hummus and a little bit of sun and I’m your gal.
Brenda saving the day on Marine Drive…
At this point I didn’t think the day could get any better but BY JOVE DID IT. After our three hour stint was completed at Marine Drive we idled over to Niarbyl for the afternoon. I’d not been to our watch point there before and was marvelling over the stunning view as soon as I tumbled out the car. We set up camp and it wasn’t long before Harbour Porpoises were spotted feeding in the mouth of the bay. Always a delightful view for sure but, hold onto your mittens, what’s that large black triangular fin-like object moving slowly across the…no, could it be?! YES IT COULD. MWDW’s first sighting of a cor’ blimey Basking Shark this year!! We were able to gape at it for around an hour until it dipped back below the silvery water to find the next cloud of food. The more I learn about Basking Sharks, the more I realise they could be my soul animal. Their feeding technique is simply to hang in the current, using next to no energy at all and swim with their enormous mouths gawking wide open, waiting for the sea to push food in, no chewing, no knife or fork, no movement required. Ideal.
Along with all of this knock-your-socks-off surveying we have also been educating the masses with a visit to the year 6 class at Dhoon School. Our Education Manager, Jen gave a presentation to very enthusiastic children about cetaceans and Basking Sharks and answered life’s important questions such as ‘have you ever seen a dolphin do a poo?’. They also showed us the artefacts and objet d’art and they had collected from the local beaches including a shell that was almost definitely a fossilised alien brain and no one can convince me otherwise. We took a 30 metre surveyors tape measure out into the playground and marked the length of each cetacean with chalk on the floor and I think I was as surprised as the children when I realised how big they all are. Even a Harbour Porpoise, being one of the smallest at 1.5 metres baffled me so you can imagine how much my brain imploded when we measured the Blue Whale. I just, I can’t even.
We also became Peel’s top celebrities last week as we made an appearance on BBC News North West Tonight during their piece about the Isle of Man. (Mum, I have finally made it. I told you I would). We met them at Niarbyl as it is for sure one of the most beautiful locations on the island and they interviewed Jen whilst myself and Sarah did some stellar acting in the background. Unfortunately, if any of my fans missed it, it has now disappeared into the Beeb Archives but Annie got her Steven Spielberg on and filmed the whole thing for the cutting edge documentary she will be producing at the end of the summer so you can all look forward to that little nugget of joy. Until then, here is a photo of us post-BBC filming. We were attempting to portray our feeling of success but instead we look quite furious, I think the fame had gone to our heads at this point.
With our Chairman, Ian Wilcock
Stay tuned for our next blog post in which we will tell you tales of our first expedition conducting a boat-based survey. Definitely spent the majority of the time pretending I was a pirate.
Over and out you wonderful reader(s).
p.s. How could the dolphin afford to buy a house?
HE PRAWNED EVERYTHING.
Diary of a Dolphineer 