Moray Firth latest

Just when you think the good weather is on the way and it might be time to get your shorts out of the cupboard and prepare for some lovely spring sailing weather - winter doubles back on us and descends again!

March roared into the Moray firth on a north-easterly gale - snow and even blizzards were the norm for the first week of the month and the second week was freezing cold, making any chance of dolphin watching or surveys a non starter. The east coast was the worst hit, particularly Aberdeen to Stonehaven, which had huge snowdrifts - even one of the helicopters from Lossiemouth became stranded in the mountains - trapped in Ice. Luckily everyone was rescued safe and well and the incident was met with the usual good old British sense of humour with someone putting up on EBay "one helicopter in the Scottish hills" for sale.

But what of the dolphins and other wildlife throughout this freezing weather - amazingly they were around, one of my colleagues reported a pod of 15+ off Cove near Aberdeen - but he was standing in a 3ft snowdrift at the time! Along the inner and outer Firth we also saw bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoise and despite the blizzards two dolphins were seen from the viewpoint at Findochty, slowly heading west but keeping close into the rocks - perhaps searching for food.

Over at Fort George, harbour porpoise were seen and also a dog otter, was spotted in full view of the for happily munching away at eels and butterfish. On 8 March a lone porpoise was spotted off Findochty and another the day after at Lossiemouth. These sightings caused a bit of a stir as the animal appeared very weak, which obviously gave me cause for concern, however thankfully after milling around the harbour wall for a while the animal appeared to gain a new burst of energy and moved away into deeper waters.

On 29 March as well as our usual survey from the viewpoint we were also able to witness the total eclipse of the sun at 10.55am - the world didn't quite go dark but we did notice a black edge at the bottom of the sun and the light did fade - but we didn't see any dolphins. The sky was clear and there were great sightings of seabirds to be had - wheeling and drifting on the air currents on this clear, bright day. We then headed back to the hostel and had some soup and also a piece of chocolate cake that one of the supporters had made to help keep up our strength during the survey work - see dolphin watching and surveys aren't all bad!

Despite the bad weather, sightings for March have been about normal for this time of year. Unfortunately one of my school talks had to be cancelled due to the fact we couldn't get in the door for snow, however I am delighted to say I did manage to get over to Huntly the next evening to allow the talk to go ahead there. The last sighting of the month came on the 30 March with 4 dolphins seen off Longhead, from the rainbow hostel and by also Gemini Explorer. Records for the east coast (from Dundee to Aberdeen) have shown good numbers of dolphins, with groups of 12+ with at least 4 calves spotted in one group.

On 4 April over at Chanonry Point, 2 common dolphins were seen, and appeared to be a mother and calf. Sadly over the month, a number of strandings have occurred in the Firth; 2 white-sided dolphins and a harbour porpoise and on the east coast and also a sperm whale stranding north of Aberdeen. It is always sad to see these magnificent creatures, so elegant and agile in the water, lying on the shoreline.

Anyway, let's see what April brings - with longer days and (hopefully) warmer weather hopefully it won't be too long before we are looking out those shorts and some sunscreen.

Until next time - looking forward to calmer waters and some sunshine.

Peter Macdonald