I didn't think that it would be possible to improve on seeing Wally the Walrus lazing around on the Tenby Lifeboat slipway. However, I was wrong as the local Harbour Porpoises decided to compete. I spent some time scanning the wide bay with the bins & scope in the hope of picking up some Dolphins. Surprisingly, I didn't see any, despite the perfect, calm seas. The best I could find was a handful of Guillemots.
Then I picked up the first of three Harbour Porpoises. Initially, there was a distant pair, but then I picked up a third closer individual. This started to regularly appear as close as eighty metres from the shoreline. This is easily the best views I've ever seen of a Harbour Porpoise. Harbour Porpoises are shy and unlike their cousins the Dolphins, they proactively avoid boats. They surface and descend in an unobtrusive manner, which makes it hard to pick up their low profile on the water. On this occasion, looking down from the coastal path about thirty metres above the water level onto glass-like seas made for perfect conditions to see & photograph one.
This is another surfacing sequence from the three quarters of an hour that this individual spent surfacing close to the shore.
Harbour Porpoise: It was so predictable that sometimes I managed to start taking photos just before it broke the surface to get the rare head photo
While it was great to see Wally the Walrus, I did come away being more impressed by the performance from this Harbour Porpoise.