Review of 2019 Shorewatch Data

Fun fact: The very first Shorewatch took place on 19th March 2005 at 15.05 Disclaimer

Just a quick note that this data review explores the data collected by Shorewatchers in 2019. It should not be used in the place of formal analysis or presented as such.

These data are not for wider use or for commercial purposes without permission from WDC. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to use Shorewatch data and we will happily arrange data sharing.

We are presenting data which has been entered into our database and so may be missing data which was not sent in or incomplete when received.

There may be errors or inconsistencies in this review, please let us know if you see these and we will do our best to correct them!

Now, onto the fun stuff!

Shorewatch Review of 2019 2019 Shorewatch Highlights • Shorewatchers conducted 7,740 efforts in 2019 (up more than 500 from 2018!) • You documented 2,057 encounters with cetaceans over 1,448 positive efforts. • You spoke to 8,728 people around Shorewatch! What incredible reach to spread the word about whales and dolphins

An encounter refers to a single sighting, consisting of one individual or a group of the same species.

If you saw a group of Risso’s and a porpoise on the same watch, that would be two encounters – so would two separate sightings of the same species!

Shorewatch Review of 2019 2018 Shorewatch highlights

• Bottlenose dolphin were once again the most frequently sighted cetacean in 2019 – 787 positive efforts • Other regularly sighted species included: • harbour porpoise (303 positive efforts), • minke whale (149 positive efforts), and • Risso’s dolphin (72 positive efforts) • All of these are increases on 2018 except for Risso’s Deciding whether you are having one spread encounter or two unique encounters can be difficult. For baleen whales, we might assume they are separate encounters unless the individuals are within a few body lengths but pods of dolphins might be very spread out. And we can’t see when spread out individuals might be a single ‘group’ acoustically!

Positive efforts aren’t influenced by whether you had one or many encounters so they are less variable between observers

Shorewatch Review of 2019 We had 198 different watchers this year How often did you watch? 100 The right side of the 90 graph shows us that: 80 7 people did up to 70 • 60 104 watches 50 • 8 people did up to 40 182 watches 30 • 10 people did up 20 to 365 watches, 10 and 0 Up to Up to 12 up to 52 / Up to 104 Up to 182 • 4 people watched How often you 365/ More Once / Once a Once a / Twice a / Every watched (grouped) Once a than 365 more than once a month week week other day day day on average! How many people Frequency 41 93 35 7 8 10 4 watched this often Thank you for giving The left three bars show us that so much of your time! • 41 people did one watch last year • the biggest group of volunteers, 93 people, did between 2-12 watches • And 35 people did between 13-52 watches in 2019. All of these people and efforts add up quickly so thank you! Efforts by site since 2010 Sites 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Total Armadale Pier, Skye 34 68 118 220 Burghead A 196 240 280 202 272 1190 Burghead B 193 246 278 197 259 1173 Castle of Old Wick 1 3 2 26 72 42 37 57 240 Chanonry Point 61 106 180 166 145 137 132 192 137 504 1760 Cromarty 23 82 69 20 89 283 Cromarty South Sutor (trial) 4 70 74 Cullen 201 293 312 480 329 324 337 432 357 3065 Eigg Pier 25 25 Findochty Church (trial) 48 76 29 153 Fort George 116 2 137 380 502 503 1640 Fraserburgh 42 99 141 Kilt Rock, Skye 38 163 315 516 Kinghorn, Fife 36 117 153 Macduff, Gellymill 394 741 776 751 747 734 736 787 761 6427 Melness Church, Talmine 39 137 176 Nairn viewpoint 296 114 167 102 108 787 North Kessock 362 914 1216 1329 1437 691 353 422 435 385 7544 Rhue Lighthouse, Ullapool 49 187 178 211 625 Rodel, Harris 50 77 99 127 135 121 170 161 940 Spey Bay, Scottish Dolphin Centre 1997 1875 1331 1741 1712 1522 1834 1677 1805 1877 17371 St. John's Point, Caithness 182 379 282 63 906 Stoer Head Lighthouse 114 78 192 Strathy Point 9 76 77 40 55 42 30 33 12 374 Tiumpan Head A (West/North) 8 75 243 219 232 535 519 344 354 2529 Tiumpan Head B (East/South) 8 71 233 212 214 483 501 337 335 2394 Torry Battery, Aberdeen 43 168 277 405 656 712 528 370 3159 Trumpan Church, Skye (trial) 25 25 GrandShorewatch Total Review of 2019 2648 4081 4976 5877 6458 6042 6817 7332 7193 7740 59164 * Totals are slightly different as grid doesn’t include all sites 2019: positive efforts & species by site

Trumpan Church, Skye (trial) Torry Battery, Aberdeen Tiumpan Head B (East/South) Tiumpan Head A (West/North) Strathy Point Stoer Head Lighthouse St. John's Point, Caithness Bottlenose Dolphin Spey Bay, Scottish Dolphin Centre Cetacean (unidentified) Rodel, Harris Rhue Lighthouse, Ullapool Common Dolphin North Kessock Dolphin (unidentified) Nairn viewpoint Fin whale Melness Church, Talmine Fin/Sei Whale Macduff, Gellymill Harbour Porpoise Kinghorn, Fife Humpback Whale Kilt Rock, Skye Killer Whale historic.Eigg, Glebe Fort George (overlooking Chanonry Point) Minke whale Findochty Church (trial) Northern Bottlenose Whale Eilean Glas (Scalpay Lighthouse), N. Harris Risso's dolphin Eigg Pier Sei whale Cullen Whale (unidentified baleen) Cromarty South Sutor (trial) White-Beaked Dolphin Cromarty Chanonry Point Look at the bottom for the total number of Castle of Old Wick Burghead B encounters. A colourful bar shows that more Shorewatch Review ofBurghead 2018 A difference species were seen from that site! Armadale Pier, Skye

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Bottlenose dolphin encounters 1 2019 100

200

300

Number of encounters shown by circle size

BND BND-pos Site Encounters efforts Chanonry Point / Ft George 283 249 Torry Battery, Aberdeen 271 199 Spey Bay, SDC 236 235 Macduff, Gellymill 32 31 Burghead combined 24 23 Cromarty S. Sutor (trial) 16 14 Cullen 13 13 Bottlenose dolphin are encountered Cromarty 11 10 the most often from our eastern sites. Kinghorn, Fife 5 5 Tiumpan combined 5 4 Note that some sites have more North Kessock 2 2 encounters than positive efforts; these Nairn viewpoint 1 1 sites are encountering multiple distinct Findochty Church (trial) 1 1 groups of bottlenose during one effort! Harbour porpoise encounters 1 2019 50

100

150

Number of encounters shown by circle size

Harbour porpoises are seen all over the place – so much so that there was nowhere to fit the chart with encounter numbers; go to the next page to see how many harbour porpoise were encountered at each site! Harbour porpoise encounters 1 2019 50

100

150

Number of encounters HP HP-pos shown by circle size Site encounters efforts Tiumpan combined 139 91 Rhue Lighthouse, Ullapool 75 66 Kilt Rock, Skye 34 31 Rodel, Harris 29 20 Stoer Head Lighthouse 20 19 Chanonry & Ft. George 20 19 Armadale Pier, Skye 19 18 Kinghorn, Fife 10 9 Trumpan Church, Skye (trial) 6 3 Eigg 5 3 Macduff, Gellymill 5 5 Again, notice that many Burghead combined 4 3 sites with the highest Melness Church, Talmine 3 3 Spey Bay, SDC 3 3 harbour porpoise Torry Battery, Aberdeen 3 3 encounters are having St. John's Point, Caithness 2 2 multiple encounters in Strathy Point 2 2 Scalpay Lighthouse 1 1 some watches Minke whale encounters 1 2019 50

100

150

Number of encounters shown by circle size

Minke Minke-pos Site encounters efforts Tiumpan combined 174 119 Kilt Rock, Skye 39 33 Melness Church 14 12 Stoer Head Lighthouse 11 11 Tiumpan head clearly sees the most Rodel, Harris 10 9 minke whales but all of our western Kinghorn, Fife 3 3 Armadale Pier, Skye 2 2 sites get a look in. Again, it looks like Macduff, Gellymill 2 2 some efforts saw conditions for multiple Burghead combined 1 1 minke encounters. There were fewer Scalpay Lighthouse 1 1 Strathy Point 1 1 sightings in the Moray Firth in 2019. Common dolphin encounters 1 2019 50

100

150

Number of encounters shown by circle size

Common Dolphin Common- Site encounter pos efforts Tiumpan combined 74 44 Again, most common dolphin sightings happen on the west coast Kilt Rock, Skye 64 34 and seem to happen with multiple encounters per effort. Does Stoer Head 9 8 this suggest that there are great conditions on those days? Or Rhue Lighthouse 7 7 Rodel, Harris 4 4 widely spread groups coming in? We do have some casual Armadale Pier, sightings from more widely around this west coast region as well. Skye 2 2 Risso’s dolphin encounters 1 2019 50

100

150

Number of encounters shown by circle size

Risso's dolphin Risso’s-pos Row Labels encounters efforts Risso’s are most commonly seen from Tiumpan combined 86 65 Stoer Head Tiumpan Head and these sightings led Lighthouse 4 4 to the WDC research team now Castle of Old Wick 1 1 conducting photo-ID and acoustic Kilt Rock, Skye 1 1 Strathy Point 1 1 studies through the winter months. Site specific data – notes about charts and graphs

The following slides will give you numbers of efforts for each site and the numbers of positive efforts (when you saw a given species) Notes about graphs and charts: • Encounter rate (E/R) in these slides is comparing positive efforts to total efforts (whether you saw the species rather than how many times you saw said species). As we discussed earlier, this helps to maintain consistency across observers. • An E/R of 0.5 would mean that one in every two watches was positive for that species. • Encounter rates are less reliable with lower effort. If you do four watches in a month but see dolphins on two of those, your encounter rate would be 2/4 or 0.5 (high!) but this could just be that you got lucky. Encounter rates are more reliable with higher levels of watches. • Take the encounter rates with a grain of salt – they are showing trends in our observations this year rather than long-term patterns. Our wider analysis uses more data, shows trends over time and whether they are statistically significant.

Shorewatch Review of 2019 Armadale, Skye

Number of observers in 2019: 9 -High effort shout out to: Jane, Stuart and Esme

Number of watches in 2019: 315 -almost double last year!

Number cetacean-positive watches: 92 -some for more than one species

People spoken to around watching: 1094 -Wow, you are connecting so many people to whales and dolphins! Armadale Harbour Porpoise E/R Armadale, Skye 25 0.75 Notes about graphs and charts: 0.65 20 0.55

• The high E/R in December could show 0.45 increased porpoise during this time but 15 as there were only 7 watches during 0.35 this month, it could just be lucky that 10 0.25

three were positive. As data builds, we WATCHES OF NUMBER 0.15 can look at these trends over time. 5

0.05 WATCHES EFFORT POSITIVE OVER TOTAL

• Remember to take the encounter rates – 0 -0.05 with a grain of salt – they are showing E/R Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec trends in our observations this year rather than long-term patterns. Our 2019 effort Harbour Porpoise e/r wider analysis shows trends over time.

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2017 effort 12 14 6 2 34 2018 effort 2 7 6 5 7 14 4 9 4 6 3 1 68 2019 effort 5 3 3 7 19 20 15 10 9 8 12 7 118 2019 positive efforts by species: Common Dolphin 1 1 2 Harbour Porpoise 1 1 5 2 3 1 2 3 18 Minke whale 1 1 2 Dolphin (unknown) 1 1 Cetacean (unknown) 1 1 Total cetacean-pos 0 0 1 1 6 2 2 0 4 1 3 4 24 Burghead

Number of observers in 2019: 4 -High effort shout out to Brian!

Number of watches in 2019: 531 (both sites) -272 (A) and 259 (B) respectively

Number cetacean-positive watches: 30

People spoken to around watching: 560 -What a great outreach! Burghead 2019: watches / month 40 0.75 35 0.65 Burghead 30 0.55 25 0.45 20 0.35 15 0.25 10 0.15 NUMBER OF WATCHES 5 0.05 0 -0.05

Burghead A effort Burghead B effort Burgead A encounter rate Burghead B encounter rate

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Burghead A Effort 9 13 13 38 25 31 34 29 31 21 15 13 272 Basking shark* 2 2 Bottlenose Dolphin 1 5 1 4 1 1 13 Harbour Porpoise 1 1 1 3 Cetacean sp. 1 1 Cetacean positive* 1 1 1 5 2 4 1 3 1 19

Burghead B Effort 10 13 15 36 22 30 29 26 28 22 15 13 259 Bottlenose Dolphin 2 3 3 1 1 10 Minke whale 1 1 Cetacean positive 3 3 3 1 1 11 Castle of Old Wick

Number of observers in 2019: 6 -High effort shout out to Sandy!

Number of watches in 2019: 57

This is an exciting site to watch because we don’t have other sites in the area. If you’re nearby, head along and help to increase the effort!

People spoken to around watching: 30

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Effort 2017 7 5 7 8 12 3 42 Effort 2018 2 14 7 13 1 37 Effort 2019 4 22 24 4 3 57 Risso's dolphin 1 1 Dolphin Sp. (casual) 1 1 Orca (casual) 1 1 © Scrapbook Project

Chanonry Point Chanonry Point

Number of observers in 2019: 26 -High effort shout out to: Sal & Debbie as well as Fiona, Marion, Sue and Milly

Number of watches in 2019: 504 -This effort has more than tripled, up from 137!!

Number cetacean-positive watches: 142

People spoken to around watching: 1077 -Spreading the word in style – amazing effort! Chanonry Point

Effort vs BND encounter rate In this case, the effort bars are divided so that you can see how 90 0.75 efforts when bottlenose were 80 0.65 seen (dark blue) combine with 70 0.55 efforts without sightings (light 60 blue) to make up total effort. 0.45 50 0.35 The encounter rate line would 40 0.25 suggest lower sightings in 30 February and the autumn 0.15 Number of watches Number 20 months. Perhaps the dolphins 10 0.05 are feeding elsewhere at this Positive efforts encounter rate encounter efforts Positive 0 -0.05 time? But also note that effort is Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec lower in Oct/Nov so that could influence the trends we see. BND+ efforts BND- efforts Encounter rate

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Effort 2017 2 5 10 8 5 51 51 47 6 1 5 1 192 Effort 2018 14 14 9 6 10 20 17 12 11 10 6 8 137 Effort 2019 16 57 12 43 40 77 63 42 59 25 25 45 504 Bottlenose Dolphin 5 3 2 20 18 26 25 11 8 2 1 10 131 Harbour Porpoise 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 12 Cetacean-positive 7 3 2 21 19 27 25 11 9 4 3 12 143 Chanonry Point – effort by month

2017 All of these ‘radar’ graphs show 2018 effort around the year: months Jan 80 can be seen around the outside Dec Feb 60 and the rings out show number Jan 80 Dec Feb Nov 40 Mar of efforts. 60 Nov Mar 20 40 Top left: in 2017, WDC staff did a 20 Oct 0 Apr lot of effort Jun-Aug but there Oct 0 Apr

was little effort outside of that Sep May Sep May Aug Jun Aug Jun Top right: in 2018, WDC no Jul Jul longer staffed Chanonry Point but effort from Shorewatchers became more even year-round 2019 Jan Jan Bottom left: effort increases a lot 80 80 Dec Feb Dec Feb in 2019 and occurs throughout 60 60 the year. These graphs show Nov 40 Mar Nov 40 Mar months with low / high effort in 20 2017 20 the jig jags Oct 0 Apr 2018 Oct 0 Apr 2019 Bottom right: overlay the three years to show clearly how much Sep May Sep May effort has shifted in the past Aug Jun Aug Jun three years! Jul Jul © Scrapbook Project

Cromarty Cromarty S. Sutor Cromarty & South Sutor (trial)

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total

Cromarty effort 2 1 11 8 6 10 27 13 4 2 5 89 Bottlenose Dolphin 3 6 1 10 BND Casual 1 4 3 7

South Sutor effort 4 2 6 5 2 8 6 24 9 1 3 70 Bottlenose Dolphin 1 5 2 5 1 14 Cetacean unknown 2 2 BND casual 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 9

Number of observers in 2019: 13 -High effort shout out to: Debbie and Sal

Number of watches in 2019: 159 -Suggested to us that we need to move the kit so that evening watching is more possible

People spoken to around watching: 150 Cullen

Number of watches in 2019: 357 (one of the most consistent sites)

Number cetacean-positive watches: 13 (no minkes this year)

Cullen People spoken to around watching: 1,102 -What an outstanding effort to spread the word!

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Effort 16 14 22 32 26 75 34 37 54 15 10 22 357 Bottlenose Dolphin 1 7 1 1 1 1 1 13 Fort George © Scrapbook Project Number of observers in 2019: 28 Fort George -High effort: David (and Carol), Egle and Jacky Number of watches in 2019: 503

Number cetacean-positive watches: 126

People spoken to around watching: 805 -Talking Ft. George and dolphins - win! Fort George

80 0.7 70 0.6 60

0.5 50 2017 Effort

0.4 2018 Effort 40 2019 Effort 0.3 2019 BND e/r 30

Number watchesof 2019 HP e/r 20 0.2 Encounter positive rate: efforts to total 10 0.1

0 0 The blue harbour porpoise encounter Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec line shows you seeing porpoise when bottlenose sightings are lowest!

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2017 Effort 7 12 12 29 45 67 50 58 36 32 10 22 380 2018 Effort 28 8 29 46 58 69 76 68 47 34 22 17 502 2019 Effort 16 27 19 49 48 66 58 41 63 35 42 39 503 Bottlenose Dolphin 1 1 1 27 25 20 20 9 5 1 1 7 118 Dolphin (unidentified) 1 1 Harbour Porpoise 2 3 2 7 Cetacean-positive 1 1 1 27 25 20 20 9 6 3 4 9 126 Comparison of bottlenose encounter rates from Chanonry and Ft. George

Chanonry and Ft. George 2019 90 0.6

80 0.5 70

60 0.4

50 0.3 40

Number efforts of 30 0.2

20 0.1 10

0 0 Encounter rate (positive efforts) with bottlenose dolphins Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

CP effort FG effort CP e/r FG e/r

The bars show effort from Chanonry (blue) and Fort George (grey) and the encounter rate lines show a very similar pattern – as we would expect from two sites looking over the same survey area! This helps to show that our methodology works. Kilt Rock

Number of observers in 2019: 9 -High effort shout out to: Sylvia, Nicola and Chris

Number of watches in 2019: 315 -This is almost double last year’s effort!

Number cetacean positive: 92 – some for more than one species

People spoken to around watching: 1,094 -an absolutely amazing amount of outreach! Kilt Rock encounter rates 70 Kilt Rock 0.7 60 0.6

Minke encounter rate peaks 50 when expected in the summer. 0.5 40 2019 effort 0.4 Common dolphin e/r

Common dolphin and porpoise 30 Harbour porpoise e/r 0.3 look slightly different to some Minke whale e/r NUMBER OF WATCHES OF NUMBER other sites (Tiumpan), it will 20 0.2 be interested to see whether 10 0.1 this continues in other years. 0 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2017 effort 5 9 8 16 38 2018 effort 6 5 4 20 13 31 29 20 14 4 6 11 163 2019 effort 10 5 7 20 41 61 62 32 42 17 10 8 315 Basking shark 1 1 Common Dolphin 1 3 10 4 13 3 34 Harbour Porpoise 2 4 4 9 2 6 1 3 31 Risso's dolphin 1 1 Minke whale 2 11 18 2 33 Cetacean Sp. 1 1 2 4 Dolphin Sp. 2 5 2 3 1 13 Whale (baleen) 1 1 Total cetacean pos 3 0 0 0 7 21 42 11 24 5 4 0 117 Kinghorn Number of observers in 2019: 13 -Shout out to Ronnie and Sam

Number of watches in 2019: 117 -A big jump from last year!

At least four species seen

People spoken to around watching: 218 -our southernmost outreach!

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2018 effort 1 2 1 8 8 7 9 36 2019 effort 5 10 8 10 7 7 5 15 14 17 8 11 117 Bottlenose Dolphin 2 2 1 5 Cetacean (unidentified) 1 1 Harbour Porpoise 2 3 1 1 1 1 9 Humpback Whale 1 1 Minke whale 1 2 3 Cetacean positive 1 2 3 4 0 0 0 3 3 2 0 1 19 Macduff

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2012 effort 61 60 62 62 65 64 53 62 62 62 63 65 741 2013 effort 62 63 63 63 59 89 63 62 63 62 61 66 776 2014 effort 64 64 64 61 62 61 63 62 64 60 62 64 751 2015 effort 62 65 62 62 62 63 62 62 61 62 62 62 747 2016 effort 63 61 62 62 60 56 62 62 61 61 62 62 734 2017 effort 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 61 62 55 62 736 2018 effort 62 62 62 62 62 105 62 62 62 62 62 62 787 2019 effort 62 62 62 62 62 72 62 62 69 62 62 62 761 Bottlenose Dolphin 2 1 1 2 7 2 5 3 3 5 31 Dolphin Sp. 1 1 Harbour Porpoise 3 1 1 5 Minke whale 2 2 Relatively even encounter rate Macduff as well. It will be interesting to look at this site for any changes during this time of Covid-19

Macduff over the years 900 0.3

800 0.25 700

600 0.2

500 0.15 400

Number efforts of 300 0.1

200 0.05 100

0 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Macduff efforts Bottlenose dolphin e/r Harbour Porpoise e/r Minke whale e/r Melness (Talmine Bay)

6 observers and 21 folk spoken to, even in this remote corner!

Shout out to Nadine!

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2018 effort 5 9 15 10 39

Nairn Number of watches in 2019: 108 -This is a great place to stop and watch if you’re on the A96

Number cetacean positive: 3 (plus two casuals)

People spoken to around watching: 94

Effort Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2015 6 5 18 34 37 47 42 34 33 16 12 12 296 2016 8 13 13 3 12 14 17 9 10 11 1 3 114 2017 9 19 23 16 10 29 16 25 10 6 4 167 2018 6 14 12 11 8 11 10 10 10 5 5 102 2019 2 6 4 15 8 17 5 20 18 6 6 1 108 North Kessock

© Scrapbook Project Sightings Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Effort 2010 3 15 28 16 62 362 2011 37 34 43 19 1 1 135 914 2012 3 5 10 10 41 38 19 1 127 1216 2013 1 5 10 27 50 63 22 11 5 194 1329 2014 7 14 18 29 13 16 1 98 1437 2015 5 11 20 4 1 41 691 2016 1 6 6 3 1 1 2 20 353 2017 1 3 4 8 4 9 1 3 2 2 37 422 2018 3 1 2 8 8 7 3 1 1 34 435 2019 2 2 385 North Kessock 385 watches (go, Liz!)

This chart shows all bottlenose- positive efforts since 2010.

So why only 2 sightings on watch and a handful of casual in 2019?! Rhue Lighthouse

© Scrapbook Project Number of observers in 2019: 11 Rhue Lighthouse -High effort shout out to Stephen Number of watches in 2019: 211 -a steady increase! Porpoise e/r in 2019 40 0.7 35 Number cetacean positive: 71 0.6 30 0.5 25 People spoken to around watching: 134! 20 0.4 15 0.3 0.2 Number efforts of 10 Just exploring but the graph shows a 5 0.1 higher encounter rate in autumn/winter 0 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2019 effort Porpoise e/r

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2016 effort 7 5 7 17 8 3 2 49 2017 effort 4 6 9 44 42 36 12 13 5 6 10 187 2018 effort 13 19 11 26 22 23 14 8 16 12 8 6 178 2019 effort 4 8 4 22 23 30 21 13 21 23 36 6 211 Common Dolphin 1 1 4 1 7 Harbour Porpoise 4 2 2 10 5 3 9 7 21 3 66 Number of observers in 2019: 18 -High effort shout out to: Anne, Rodel, Harris Wendy, Pippa, Gordon

Number of watches in 2019: 161

Number cetacean positive: 31 – some for more than one species

People spoken to around watching: 65

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2016 effort 8 9 9 13 18 28 6 8 13 8 15 135 2017 effort 6 4 3 14 5 22 24 14 20 5 4 121 2018 effort 5 5 8 12 9 50 23 18 24 8 7 1 170 2019 effort 5 5 5 9 19 34 18 6 42 10 5 3 161 Basking shark* 2 6 8 Common Dolphin 2 1 1 4 Dolphin Sp. 1 1 1 3 Harbour Porpoise 1 5 6 3 5 20 Humpback 1 1 Minke whale 3 2 4 9 Cetacean pos 2 1 0 0 1 6 11 5 11 0 0 0 37 2019 effort - the BWW effect! Jan 45 Rodel, Harris Dec 40 Feb 35 30 Nov 25 Mar 20 15 This radar graph shows us that there are 10 many more watches than usual in June and 5 September – the BWW effect! Oct 0 Apr

Should we consider more targeted watch times? Sep May

Aug Jun

Jul

Number of observers in 2019: 18 -Shout out to our wonderful residential volunteers!

Simon is Shorewatcher who has been watching for the most consecutive years – 11 in total!

Number of watches in 2019: 1,877

Number cetacean positive: 242

People spoken to around watching: 1,944 people chatted on our Shorewatch hill! Spey Bay BND e/r at Spey Bay 0.45

This crazy graph isn’t easy to read but 0.4 Late increase in the red line for the 2019 E/R suggests 0.35 sightings. Why? that we didn’t have the typical jump in 2014 e/r sightings in the spring months. Could 0.3 2015 e/r this be due to salmon run timings? 0.25 2016 e/r 0.2 2017 e/r The chart below shows bottlenose 0.15 2018 e/r sightings by month over the years 2019 e/r with total annual effort in the 0.1 righthand column. We could still 0.05 increase effort in winter but sightings 0 are fairly consistent. Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Total Total Sightings Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec BND+ efforts 2010 15 47 77 62 46 30 16 7 1 301 1997 2011 6 45 58 57 41 38 51 18 6 320 1875 2012 9 14 43 30 33 46 16 14 1 206 1331 2013 2 8 26 59 68 49 60 38 12 10 3 335 1741 2014 2 1 5 18 70 77 67 47 42 43 3 375 1712 2015 1 28 50 74 32 29 22 17 3 12 268 1522 2016 1 4 12 48 32 62 18 40 15 4 1 237 1834 2017 1 4 4 47 60 40 17 29 12 19 2 235 1677 2018 1 44 67 30 41 41 7 15 3 249 1805 2019 2 25 31 41 53 48 23 8 4 235 1877 Stoer Head Lighthouse © Scrapbook Project Stoer Head Lighthouse 78 watches – thanks David Efforts by species encountered and Avril! 35

30 Of which 34 were cetacean positive 25

20 496 people spoken to, which 15 is an incredible reach! 10 NUMBER OF EFFORTS OF NUMBER

5 These stacked graphs are more 0 colourful when more species are Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec encountered. Blue shows watches Efforts no sighting Harbour Porpoise Minke whale with no encounters and then the Risso's dolphin Common Dolphin Fin whale other species each have their own colour.

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2019 Efforts 1 2 8 19 12 19 14 3 78 Common Dolphin 4 4 8 Fin whale 1 1 Harbour Porpoise 2 2 6 1 5 2 1 19 Minke whale 5 5 1 11 Risso's dolphin 1 3 4 Tiumpan Head

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Effort (A) 14 9 18 33 40 62 75 24 29 15 23 12 354 Sightings-positive (A) 4 2 5 16 32 76 54 13 8 0 1 2 213 Effort (B) 14 9 18 33 35 60 71 18 27 16 22 12 335 Sightings-positive (B) 9 3 7 19 21 82 81 13 11 11 10 4 271 Effort (combined) 28 18 36 66 75 122 146 42 56 31 45 24 689 Sighting-pos (combo) 13 5 12 35 53 158 135 26 19 11 11 6 484

Species-positive efforts (both sites) Basking shark 1 1 2 Bottlenose Dolphin 3 1 4 Cetacean Sp. 1 1 1 1 4 Common Dolphin 1 1 1 19 12 3 3 3 1 44 Dolphin Sp. 1 1 2 3 20 21 3 1 4 1 57 Fin whale 11 2 13 Fin/Sei Whale 1 1 Harbour Porpoise 4 1 5 17 14 18 24 4 2 2 91 Humpback Whale 3 1 1 1 1 7 Killer Whale 2 1 3 Minke whale 1 1 5 7 19 41 28 4 8 1 3 1 119 N. Bottlenose Whale 1 1 2 Risso's dolphin 5 1 1 4 5 18 19 5 2 1 4 65 Sei whale 1 1 Whale (baleen) 1 2 3 4 1 1 12 White-Beaked Dolphin 4 7 33 12 2 1 2 61 30 different observers Tiumpan Head watched at Tiumpan this year! Shout out to Steve e/r of common species at Tiumpan and Janet 160 0.7 354 (A) and 335 (B) watches took place and of 140 0.6 these,

120 142 (A) and 166 (B) were 0.5 cetacean positive

100 Effort (B) 0.4 Effort (A) Sites combined, 464 e/r common dolphin people were spoken to 80 e/r harbour porpoise about Shorewatch! 0.3 e/r minke whale

NUMBER OF EFFORTS OF NUMBER e/r Risso's dolphin 60 e/r white-beaked dolphin ENCOUNTER RATE (POSITIVE EFFORTS) (POSITIVE ENCOUNTER RATE 0.2 40

0.1 20

0 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec e/r of common species at Tiumpan

Tiumpan Head 160 0.7 140 0.6 120 0.5 100 0.4 80 0.3 Jan 60 0.35 0.2 40 Dec Feb 0.3 20 0.1

0.25 0 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 0.2 Nov Mar 0.15

0.1 e/r common dolphin This radar graph is another 0.05 e/r harbour porpoise way to look at encounter rates Oct 0 Apr e/r minke whale around the year. e/r Risso's dolphin e/r white-beaked dolphin You can see that most species peak between April and July because this is where their Sep May lines reach the furthest out. However, porpoise and Risso’s show another small peak in Aug Jun January.

Jul Torry Battery

22 different observers at Torry but a huge shout out to Monica and Walter as well as Stuart and Neville.

370 watches of which 203 were cetacean positive – making it the site where you are most likely to see a cetacean on watch!

130 people spoken to around watching and a ripple effect through Dolphinwatch as well.

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2017 efforts 49 47 39 75 75 97 84 37 69 54 39 47 712 2018 efforts 34 45 34 35 35 98 67 54 35 25 33 33 528 2019 efforts 25 25 43 25 31 20 61 60 7 19 28 26 370 2019 BND+ 14 22 31 22 26 14 14 30 4 7 4 11 199 Torry Battery, Aberdeen

Encounter rates around the year Looking at this radar graph, you can see that encounter rates tend to be higher (E/R lines 2017 e/r 2018 e/r 2019 e/r are further out) in the spring and summer Jan 0.9 months. Dec 0.8 Feb 0.7 You had the highest encounter rates in 2019 0.6 Nov 0.5 Mar (the grey line is the furthest out in the circle) 0.4 0.3 0.2 In fact, if an encounter rate of 1.0 means that 0.1 you saw dolphins on every watch, this was Oct 0 Apr nearly the case in Feb, April, and May of 2019! Sep May

Aug Jun

Jul

And a shout out to those people who are collecting data from our smaller and newer sites where we are still working on building effort and support! Your contributions as part of Team Shorewatch are so valuable as we look further afield.

Sites Number of watches Cetacean-positive efforts Eigg (Glebe&Pier) 32 7 (harbour porpoise, dolphin sp.) Findochty Church (trial) 29 1 (bottlenose dolphin) Fraserburgh 99 1 basking shark St. John's Point 63 2 (harbour porpoise) Strathy Point 12 4 (harbour porpoise, minke, Risso's) Trumpan Church, Skye (trial) 25 5 (harbour porpoise, dolphin sp.)

Shorewatch Review of 2019 A huge 2019 thank you to Johann and Rieka

And a shout-out to this amazing lady… Katie is the heart of Shorewatch But in the end, you ARE Shorewatch so thank you for all that you do, all that you watch, all you represent!