Tuesday 18th August 2015 saw MSeis vessel, ‘Dauntless’ chartered for use in a special ornithological and dolphin survey on the South coast of England, organised by our friends at the MARINElife charity. The survey featured 9 vessels each covering a section of the south coast with observers looking for Bottlenosed Dolphins and the critically endangered Balearic Shearwater.
Our section of the coast covered East of Portland Bill around West to Lyme Bay, a busy stretch of water with plenty of strong tidal water. Success came in the form of a sighting of a Balearic Shearwater near the Shambles Bank, East of Portland Race. The Shambles Bank sees the sea bed rise up from around 25m to 8m depth in places providing a feeding ground for sea birds. Unfortunately we didn’t have any dolphin sightings, but we were informed that there had been sightings by the survey team on vessels further West to our position.
For more information on the whole survey, please visit the MARINElife website.
