About PodLog
Last updated: 16 September 2026
PodLog is a live map of the orcas, dolphins, porpoises, whales and seals recorded around Britain and Ireland, together with a forecast of where those pods are likely to be over the next 72 hours.
Where the sightings come from
Sightings reach the map from two kinds of source, and every record shows which one it came from. Records are imported continuously from the Sea Watch Foundation and WhaleTrack, the long-running citizen science schemes that have catalogued UK cetacean sightings for decades. Anyone can also report a sighting directly, giving a species, a position and a photo, and those reports join the same map.
Between 150 and 190 sightings arrive on a typical day. Each one carries a timestamp and a position, which is what the clustering and the forecast are built from.
How pods are worked out
Sightings are grouped into pods before they reach the map. PodLog clusters records that are close together in space, time and species into a single track, so that a group of animals reported by four different people over six hours appears as one pod moving along a coastline rather than four unrelated points. Each pod is given a colour, a trail showing where it has been, and an estimated speed.
How the forecast works
The 72-hour forecast is a diffusion model. It begins from each pod’s most recent recorded position, spreads the likely position outward as time passes and confidence decays, and weights that spread by conditions in the water: tidal state from the E.U. Copernicus Marine Service, sea temperature, currents, and learned tidal hotspots where sightings have historically clustered at a particular point in the tide.
The limits are worth stating plainly. Distance from a pod’s last known position dominates the prediction, and the environmental layers refine it only at the margins. The forecast indicates where it is worth looking. It is not a guarantee that animals will be present, and wild animals are under no obligation to follow it.
Watching responsibly
Cetaceans in UK waters are protected by law, and it is an offence to disturb them. PodLog is intended to help people watch and record marine wildlife from a respectful distance, whether from the shore or from a boat that keeps well clear. Our terms set out what that means in practice.
Who makes it
PodLog is an independent project, built to run on free infrastructure so that the map stays open to everyone. Sightings data remains the property of the schemes and individuals who collected it, and is credited on the map.