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Great weather for Kintra headland watch
We spent the last day of May making the most of the beautiful weather and scenery around Kintra on the Ross of Mull. Teaming up with the Mull and Iona Ranger Service, we delivered an interactive session in the morning for the P5 pupils from Bunessan Primary School, and a community headland watch in the afternoon.
Our session started in the classroom, introducing pupils to different Hebridean habitats, and exploring OS maps, marine charts and sightings maps to discover more about our local marine environment. The pupils then learnt how to use and adjust our new binoculars, kindly provided by Opticron. Eagerly, we then headed out to the headland at Kintra to take our learning outdoors! Pupils studied the local environment and weather conditions, and learnt how these could help or hinder whale, dolphin or porpoise sightings. We surveyed for seabirds and were lucky enough to see gannets dive-bombing into the sea for fish! This was exciting, especially as feeding gannets can sometimes act as an indicator for dolphins, as they like to catch the same fish. Everyone had fun using our new big eye binoculars, which we purchased last winter with the support of the MESS project, managed by the Mull and Iona Community Trust. Unfortunately, over the morning, we didn’t spot any dolphins, or other cetaceans, but we left the watch knowing more about the local wildlife seen in and around Kintra, and some handy tips on what to watch for.
The community sea watching event in the afternoon also went really well. We had 11 attendees who got to spend a couple of lovely hours in the sun with us, getting lots of advice for whale watching, and learning about the local flora and fauna with Emily the Ranger. We also had the chance to measure out each of the cetaceans we were scanning for, and worked out how big they are in relation to ourselves. Our session finished with a quick introduction to our new sightings app, which will revolutionise the way in which we report our sightings, and will be available to download later this summer.
Thanks to Emily and Kate from the Ranger Service, Bunessan Primary School and everyone who came along to make the day such a success! We would also like to thank players of the People’s Postcode Lottery for raising funds through Postcode Local Trust to support our outdoor education projects this year.