'Where Conservation Meets the Sea'

Mother and pup grey seal play in filamentous seaweeds

'What do the polar bear, European eel, African lion, hammerhead shark, devil ray, lead poisoning and marine debris have in common?' 

For the answer see the Huffington Post HERE!

Tales of the Limplet Valley - Leaf-Fall

More images from Bardsey Island

First some Bardsey Landscapes

The one remaining original cottage

View of south end and the lighthouse from the Bird Observatory 

Along the main road

 And next the seals:

A handsome Bardsey grey seal bull

A beautiful young mother 

Main seal haul-out on exceptionally low tide (looking north towards the 'mountain')

watchful mother

'grumpy' pup about two weeks old

Suckling pup 

Recently moulted pup on a bed of recently washed in kelp contemplates goes to sea.

Another pup

And finally, for those that know him, the long standing Warden of the Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory - can of Pledge in hand - Steve Stansfield.

Bardsey Seal Blog

My recent visit to Bardsey Island this month coincided with very stormy weather.

I have written something about this which has just been published on the Huffington Post HERE.

More photos from Bardsey will follow but here are a few to set the scene.

Stormy seas off Bardsey south end,

Bardsey sunset from the Bird Observatory

'Brownie'

ASCOBANS - Education and Outreach Special

Man with a big heart
(Simmonds inside a blue whale heart c/o Gothenburg
Natural History Museum)

ASCOBANS is the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans in the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas. It has recently held its 21st Advisory Committee meeting in Gothenburg in Sweden. Here are some images from this meeting where a particularly striking theme was the variety of innovative education and outreach work being conducted across the region - from leaflets to moving imagery. If you have time take a look at the links!

A view of the ASCOBANS Advisory Committee - Fabian Ritter of WDC in the foreground

Fabian compliments Alison Wood (also of WDC) on her huge computer

Peter Evans of the Sea Watch Foundation and
Genevieve Desportes the North Sea Coordinator

Fabian Ritter described a project with a small group of students from the Design University in Dessau who produced some remarkable short films as part of the on the International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise (IDBHP) (18 May 2014). You can see them HERE - this link is to 'The Last Memory' and others are listed to the left.

Ritter again.

Alison introduces the WDC Aberdeen dolphin event

WDCS dolphin event in Aberdeen

WDC held a public exhibition in Aberdeen this summer with 50 large individually-decorated dolphins.

To see how they were received in Aberdeen, click HERE

The exhibition is now over but it had its own hiome page and gallery HERE

Here the CMS/ASCOBANS Secretariat reports on the education and outreach activities of
the agreement including its new marine debris leaflets (three gold stars for that)! 

New debris leaflet modelled by Mrs Wood

Debris leaflet

Balloon over Gothenburg