Common seal river Adur, Shoreham.

Another common seal sighting in the River Adur, between the Airport footbridge and flyover

The sighting was reported by Joe Lines between 1:30 and 3:00pm

Joe said he was amazed to see the seal looking so content and even seemed to enjoy the attention from people on the river bank.

Seals are very curious animals, especially where they feel

All photos copyright Joe Lines 

Dead Sea Turtle on Worthing Beach

I have just received a message form Graham at the Seafront Office at Worthing in West Sussex with a report of a dead marine turtle at splash point.

When they arrived on the scene they were able to tell that the turtle was dead and measured 1 and a half meters in length. The turtle was located the turtle due south of Coast Café.

Looking at the number of scales on the shell I was say this is a loggerhead turtle, Graham also suggested this species.

Tropical Sea turtles do turn up around our shore from time to time and because of the colder water (and reptiles being cold blooded) they become sluggish and don't feed and then if not rescued they usually die.

The cause of death is not know at present, the underside looked concave so it may have starved or it could have ingested plastic, but we will have to wait for the post mortem. I will update if more information is available.

 

Common Dolphin at Shoreham harbour

I have been following up several sightings of a dolphin/s reported at Shoreham Harbour on 30th December. One sighting mentions 2 dolphins which occurred outside of the harbour. Photographs show that the dolphin seen inside the harbour was a common dolphin.

© Mike Hobbs, Watchkeeper at Shoreham National Coastwatch.

All the other sightings are of a single dolphin inside the Harbour. So it might be possible that there were two dolphins and that only one of them entered the harbour. Sightings also suggest that the dolphin was around for longer than we originally thought on the 30th December and may have been around for a couple of days or more.

© Mike Hobbs, Watchkeeper at Shoreham National Coastwatch.

Comparing the picture of the Shoreham Dolphin with the Brighton dolphin back in 22nd September, (See earlier web entry) they are not the same dolphin; the dorsal fin is much more curved in the Brighton pictures. I am trying to track down any possible images of the dolphin that the Brighton Dolphin joined up with at Seaford back in 22nd Sept?

© Mike Hobbs, Watchkeeper at Shoreham National Coastwatch.


There is a small chance that this Shoreham dolphin is the one that the Brighton dolphin hooked up with, but this can only be confirmed if a photograph as taken of the Seaford dolphin that we could compare. These two dolphins have been spotted in east Sussex (Hastings area) since the original 22nd sighting - so they may still be around. It is unusual to see common dolphins, especially two dolphin together, so the chances are that they are the same animals but only photographs will prove this conclusively.

Reported sightings include those from the Shoreham National Coastwatch, based at the mouth of Shoreham Harbour who also provided the photographs for this entry, the Port Authority and Sea Watch Foundation

Another Fascinating Inter-tidal Event at West Beach Local Nature Reserve

Another session on the West Beach Local Nature Reserve at littlehampton in West Sussex.

As before we met at the visitors centre. It was a hot sunny day and a nice sized group of adults and children gathered for the tide pool session.

This time the tide was out further providing better access to the pier and tide pools.

We found lots of creatures attached to the rocks and pier including mussels, barnacles, limpets, periwinkles, top shell and dogwhelk. More about these in the previous post Saturday 11th August.

We also found some sea anemones, but they were closed up because the tide was out.

I drew a sea anemone in the sand to show what they looked like underwater and told them some facts about sea anemones.

We found lots of green shore crabs in the pools, last time the tide was not out as far and we only found a couple of tiny crabs.

We caught a few for a closer look. I asked the children questions about the crabs such as what they eat, how they catch thweir food, etc.

We also looked at how crabs can be picked up safely without being pinched and without harming the crab.

We also found lots of prawns, tiny shrimp-like amphipods and some small rockpool fish.

These tiny fish are juvenile common blennies.

We found lots of different animals in the tide pools and everyone said they had a great time. It is hoped that by running such guided session, people will come back and explore the beach or use what they have learned to explore another piece of coastline.

You can find out more about the West Beach Nature Reserve at http://www.arun.gov.uk/main.cfm?type=WESTBEACHRESERVE&objectid=4399

White Beaked dolphins

Just received an interesting sighting of a White-beaked Dolphin observed by surveyors bow-riding their vessel about 15 miles south of Worthing (9th November 2011). Followers of this blog may remember we had a small group of white beaked dolphins sighted some miles off shore between Eastbourne and Dieppe back in April this year.

This species often bow-rides so it is interesting that both local sightings of these dolphins were bowriding. This species is not normally recorded in the English Channel.

Grey Seal, Goring West Sussex

I received a report of a seal off the beach at Marine Drive Goring-by-Sea from Mark and Claire. They took their children across to the beach and to their surprise watched a seal about 10 metres off the beach.

The seal was about 30 - 40 metre's off the beach and was photographed with the seal's head above the water. From the photographs, the seal appears to be a grey seal, with its flat head and Roman nose.Mark and Claire's description also suggests a grey seal.

Mark and Claire stayed for about 20 minutes and the seal periodically disappeared and reappeared at this distance. There was a large number of sea sports such as wind and kite surfing towards the east about 1 km way and the seal seemed to be very aware of the activity. If fact Mark and Claire said the seal is looking in that direction in the photo.