In search of all cetaceans great and small

Back in September, as a treat to myself for making it through my Master’s degree, I went back to the Moray Firth where I  saw my very first dolphin at 10 years old. However this time I was lucky enough to join the Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit (CRRU) and help with their research programme.

This trip was, all clichés unashamedly intended, a childhood dream come true. I think it’s taken me so long to write about it because I wish I was still there! However as I’m about to embark on my next cetacean quest I thought it was finally time to put this experience down in writing.

Who are the CRRU?

Initially formed in 1997 the CRRU is a non-profit organisation comprised of a team of marine researchers and environmentalists. They study the transient population of bottlenose dolphins in the area, and any other cetaceans they come across. As well as collecting scientific data in collaboration with Universities and research institutions, the CRRU team provide 24 hour veterinary support for injured or stranded marine mammals. Part of the induction of volunteers into the team involves learning marine mammal rescue techniques so that you can assist should the team be called out to a live-stranding. They also have a large outreach and community education programme, giving  talks and training courses as well as providing work experience placements and projects for students at University.

Arrival

The drive up from Leeds to the home of CRRU in Gardenstown was beautiful, if long and a little lonely. Therefore I was incredibly happy to pick up two of the other volunteers from the train station in Aberdeen to join me for the last hour of my journey. Kev, the CRRU Director, had warned me about the steep sea wall but that still didn’t prepare me for the vertigo inducing drop I had to inch the car along! Car safely parked we made our way inside a gorgeous little cottage to a flurry of hugs, a crackling fire and a cuppa. Kev greeted us like family and informed us that most of the staff (all incredibly qualified volunteers) unfortunately had been called away on other business, and that we would be the CRRU team for the last weeks of the season, which meant learning the ropes quickly! We got to know each other over a few competitive games of UNO and chattered excitedly about what we might see on our first day out on the boat tomorrow.

First day on the boat

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t quite what we had hoped for, however this didn’t deter us. We WERE the CRRU team, we had boat skills to practice, observation techniques to learn and seasickness to overcome. So we ventured out onto the choppy North Sea, cameras in hand. The CRRU boat is amazing, an 8 meter RHIB with twin engines and an awesome sound system – plus everyone got a chance to drive it!

Team X (photo: Kev Robinson)

We weren’t hoping for much as the weather conditions were worsening. However there were no feelings of disappointment as everyone was just having a enjoying the time spent out on the sea. Unexpectedly a call of “Dolphin!” had us all screeching “What, where?” and frantically positioning ourselves around the boat. Three sub adult bottlenose dolphins appeared right beside us, playing and rubbing up against each other. Kev recognised them instantly, calling out there names as each surfaced and pointing out notches and scrapes on their dorsal fins to identify them. Despite being overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of dolphins it was straight to work, recording the encounter and the different behaviours the dolphins were displaying. Working as a team some of us took notes about the encounter whilst others tried to photograph the dorsal fins so that we could confirm their identities later. The trio stayed with us for about 10 minutes before disappearing as quickly and silently as they had first appeared.

Dolphins weren’t the only surprise on our first day at sea. We got to the end of our transect and turned heading away from shore, and much to our surprise spotted a harbour porpoise. Not just one or two, as we had first thought. We counted around 35 of these tiny cetaceans. Harbour porpoises tend to be spotted alone, or in small groups of up to about 8 individuals. So to have more than 30 surrounding the boat was quite extroardinary. The encounter was short but sweet, much like the animals themselves. As we made our way back to Gardenstown we were followed by curious grey seals, watched black guillemots and gannets swooping through the sky and even spotted a baby puffin, which are called pufflings!

Day 1 on the boat had set the bar rather high.

Two of the sub adult bottlenose dolphins (photo: Kev Robinson)

Stinky minkes

Our next outing on the boat involved a couple of mystery encounters. The first was a possible basking shark, we spotted the telltale silhouette of the tip of the tail, dorsal fin and the snout of the nose. However it was so far away it could quite possibly have been a group of seals, and unfortunately it disappeared when we began to approach. The second was a large blow off in the distance, Kev tried to convince us it was a submarine disappearing back into the depths, however later that evening we heard that another boat had spotted a fin whale! Quite a rare thing to sight in the Moray Firth.

Up to this point we hadn’t really seen much that we could positively identify. Just one tiny harbour porpoise that most of us missed. Therefore when two rather large minke whales appeared, it’s safe to say we were all rather surprised! Not only is it unusual to see more than one whale travelling together, but they appeared to be feeding together, lunging out of the water their mouths agape sending sand eels leaping from the water in an attempt to escape. They came so close to us that we caught the scent of their blows, which have the distinctive smell of old cabbage! Incredibly the two minke whales stayed with us for around 40 minutes, allowing us to conduct a ‘focal follow’ in which we recorded the larger whales pattern of breaches, length of dive, direction of travel and associated behaviour. Minke whales tend to breach 3 times before they arch their backs and descend on a deep dive for several minutes. The whale we had chosen to track however clearly wasn’t interested in helping to progress our understanding of their diving behaviour, they were more interested in our boat. We kept spotting it around 6 metres directly beneath the boat on our fishfinder.

Two minke whales feeding 

Over the course of the time I spent with the CRRU I learned a lot about cetaceans and other marine mammals, but I also gained valuable practical skills in photo identification, marine mammal rescue, boat handling and maintenance and cooking to feed a large group of hungry people! Every minute was filled with something to learn, jokes to be shared or games to be played. I met some wonderful people during my time there and I really hope I get to go back in the future. I’m not sure I’ve done the experience justice in this post so if you get the chance, go visit them and see for yourself.

 

Fieldwork in Kenya

When I chose my course at the University of Leeds I had the option of paying extra to go on a field course to Kenya and undertake a short research project. The new postgraduate loan meant that I could afford to go, so how could I say no? I may never have the opportunity, or money to visit Kenya again.

If you find a course that gives you the option of conducting fieldwork somewhere other than your native country go.

It’s one thing to learn about conservation in your home country and how we go about protecting the places and creatures that are important to us. But conservation is a global issue. Go and experience the struggles and triumphs of conservation within other countries. Some aspects may be hard to deal with, but this is the reality of the field we have chosen to go into. You can never truly understand an issue until you experience it for yourself.

So just go!

Me trying to look nonchalant at the top of Mukenya

Mpala Research Centre

The Mpala Research Centre was our home for the two weeks we spent in Kenya. The centre lies within the Laikipia plateau just to the Northwest of Mt Kenya. It has the fourth largest African Wild Dog population and scores of endangered Grevy’s Zebra. We stayed in small groups in houses across the Mpala campsite which we also shared with Dik-dik, Kudu, lizards and the occasional spider.

Heathrow House was home to six of us during our stay at Mpala

One of the beautiful Kudu that we frequently watched from our veranda

The centre has a library, equipped with articles published at the centre and every book you could possibly need for the research you might be conducting there. It also has a classroom, laboratory and kitchen (which serves the best chapati and lentil curry you will ever taste). The campsite is surrounded by fences which mostly keep out Elephants and larger animals such as Wild Dogs and Leopards. However smaller animals can get in, we were often joined for breakfast by Vervet monkeys and Hornbills. Just outside of the camp is hippo pool, which is self explanatory, and you can watch it live here! I could spend all day describing the parts of the 48,000 acres of the research centre that I got to see. However I feel like pictures will describe it much better than my rambling words, so I’ve put a short slideshow at the end of this post.

A Hornbill joining us for breakfast

The Vervet monkeys were very confident. Sneaking into the vans if the roofs were accidentally left open. They would even steal snacks right from your backpack!

My research project

Team Thorn feat. James

Our group of six (Abi, Katherine, Aggeliki, Megan and Rosie) were looking at the relationship between four ant species and the whistling thorn acacia (Acacia drepanolobium). The acacias provide their own defense in the form of stipular thorns, and produce extrafloral nectaries and domatia to encourage ants to colonise and protect them. Nectaries are sites at the bottom of leaves which produce nectar for the ants and domatia are swollen pseudogalls at the base of the thorns which the ants hollow out and colonise.

Myself and Abi with an A. drepanolobium on our last day. When we realised we might miss the prickly so and so’s a little

In return the ants remove insect herbivores and swarm to attack mammalian herbivores when they feed on the tree, protecting it from overgrazing. They can even defend against Elephants! In fact we saw an Elephant kick one over in disgust – I don’t think they’re fans. Within these four ant species (Tetraponera penzigi, Crematogaster nigriceps, Crematogaster mimosae and Crematogaster sjostedti) there is a dominance hierarchy, with more dominant species displacing the initial colonising species T. penzigi. Some of these ants are more useful to the Acacia than others however. C. nigriceps is even known to castrate the trees so that they cannot bear fruit!

 

This Elephant did not appreciate the ants making it difficult to get a meal!

Black cotton soil is a unique habitat as it is almost entirely a monoculture of whistling thorn acacia. Many studies have been conducted into the relationships between the acacias and these ant species within black cotton soils. However it is unclear if the nature of these relationships are the same in marginal, nutrient depleted soil. Our study found that ant species had a greater impact on the allocation of resources for anti-herbivore defense than soil type. And also that thorn length was greater in transitional soils. We found that there was a correlation between investment in the size of both ant and thorn defenses in transitional soils. However, whether a trade-off between ant and thorn defense investment exists due to reduced nutrient availability still remains unclear.

If you’re interested in reading a bit more about ant-acacia mutualisms some key papers are  Young et al 1997, Stanton et al 2002 and Stanton et al 2011.

Unforgettable moments

A chameleon fell out of an acacia tree onto Ben’s head. There’s not really much else to that one. Just imagine it. It was hilarious. (N.B. both the chameleon and Ben were unharmed).

Not said chameleon but another we met on our climb up Mt Kenya

We found the most adorable frog on an acacia tree. Frogs in the Savannah. Who knew?

If anyone can identify this species please get in touch!

The gentle Dik-dik and Kudu that were nearly always present at our house. One evening we were sitting reading outside and the Kudu walked right past us.

Getting the call on the radio that Wild Dogs had been spotted. They had just made a kill and we were lucky enough to glimpse a pair through the scrub and long grass. My first wild dog. Ever. I was beyond elated and close to tears. Seeing Jackal puppies at the end of the trip nearly sent me over the edge! (For those of you that haven’t seen my first blog post I am obsessed with Wolves and dogs in general, so this was a huge event for me).

The African Wild Dogs stuck around for over 10 minutes

Hyenas singing me to sleep each night.

And a moment I honestly believe I will carry in my memory forever. Up on Baboon Cliff we were looking out across the landscape spotting Elephants and Giraffes in the distance. Steve suddenly shouts out. It becomes quickly apparent that just below us is a Hyena den. We looked on as six Hyena lope out from the den and bound across the Savannah. A few seconds after the Hyenas disappeared the sky darkened and rain fell like I’ve never seen. Breaking the terrible drought that the region had been experiencing. We pelted back to the van singing Toto’s “Africa” and laughing our heads off.

Steve, Team Thorns project supervisor, was the first to spot the Hyenas (credit: Abi Harrison captured the moment perfectly)

Photos

Please note: whilst we visited a reserve where White and Black Rhinos were present I cannot post pictures of them due to risk of poaching. Unfortunately the reserve we visited has lost many rhinos to poaching.

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