Redeye baitballs - hard work and slim pickings… - 03:37 pm

09 Jun 2009

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This morning early we came across a pod of common dolphin working small shoals of red-eye sardines, quite probably the same pod that we worked yesterday. From a filming perspective, such feeding behaviour is tricky to capture - not only are the shoals small in size, they tend to move far more quickly through the water column and do not ball nearly as tightly as the Sardinops sagax sardines, thus being harder to feed on. It would appear that it is also tricky for the pursuing sharks, who struggle to take advantage of these fast moving meal opportunities, and never have we seen a shark actually catch a red-eye sardine underwater. Around 10.00am the north easterly, or ‘beastly easterly’ as we call it, started to freshen, and we cut our losses and headed back to base. Based on current reports, its is not unlikely that the pilot shoal reported off Mazeppa bay three days ago could be with us in the next few days, so we will continue to keep focused on the south, and wait for the action to erupt.

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Comments

1 posted at 06:10pm on 09 June, 2009 by Lennart (Blogger in Crane)

You can never learn enough. By reading your information I am suddenly made aware of the almost endless applications of small portable cranes. 

2 posted at 02:12pm on 10 June, 2009 by Damien

I would like to thank you a lot, because I will come in South Africa for the 2009 Sardine Run at the end of June, and with your reports I can follow the evolution of the situation, it’s really nice ! See you soon, maybe at Port St Johns !

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