Apr 2026 By Rebecca Shouten
It’s a relief to return to New Quay before the busy season begins. Spending two months last year as an intern and returning as the Research Assistant and Intern Coordinator has been the highlight of my year… and it’s only April! It was nice to see familiar faces from the office, Dolphin Spotting Boat Trips and other locals. After a busy few hours unpacking my car, I went to grab some chips from Mariners and sat on the pier. After 5 minutes, I began to think about how quiet it was, unlike the busy hustle and bustle we are used to on the pier in New Quay.
I continued to finish my dinner when I heard a splash in front of me. A mother and calf were slowly passing by the harbour. They swam in unison, sometimes the calf falling slightly behind, learning to keep up with mum! I could see a few fetal folds on the calf, indicating that they were still young – a true sign the season is beginning!
I am looking forward to meeting our period 1 interns and getting stuck into all our surveys. I am taking this time now to re-familiarise myself with survey techniques, admin and preparing for a smooth arrival of interns in a few days’ time. I hopped on a Dolphin Spotting Boat Trips outing yesterday, attempting to input data onto our new app, “Sea Watcher”. The app is a user-friendly way to input cetacean sightings and an alternative to our older paper-based templates. The swell was high and there had been no sightings that day – I wasn’t hopeful. We passed some cormorants, gulls and eventually the kittiwake breeding colony, where I eventually saw a dark silhouette at 1 o’clock from the boat. One turned to four and we eventually had a pod bow riding as we continued along our path. I soon realised we were with a maternal pod as one of the individuals was a juvenile, with its light grey colouring. I was lucky to have seen this on my first boat survey, particularly so early on in the season.
I am hopeful that the sightings will only increase and with our amazing network of staff, interns and volunteers, we are able to only improve our recordings and monitoring of bottlenose dolphins in the Cardigan Bay area.
