With sunny skies and light winds forecast for this week I was
confident that we would log plenty of sightings. Things started well on Monday
as we came across a group of three harbour porpoises early in the day. The group
consisted of two adults and a juvenile. This was followed by 12 common
dolphins, they were foraging and paid little notice to our presence. The group
contained a few juveniles and one small calf. A sighting of a single minke
whale later on the trip rounded out the sightings for the day.
Minke whale (c) Paddy O'Dwyer - IWDG
Tuesday saw an end to the common dolphin sightings with no
sign of them in the bay. However two sightings of individual harbour porpoises
followed later in the day by a sighting of two adult minke whales meant that
there was still plenty of cetacean activity around the islands. Wednesday
highlighted why the area is an SAC for harbour porpoises. In conditions that
were less than ideal for surveying this elusive species we had six separate sightings.
The first was a group of three that consisted of two adults and a juvenile all travelling
very close to each other. This was followed by a sighting of a single harbour
porpoise. We then had two groups of two animals that were encountered a good
distance apart; both these groups consisted of adults. The day was rounded off
with a sighting of a single adult and then a group of three adult harbour
porpoises again travelling very close together. While it was great to see so many harbour
porpoises around the area it was unusual to encounter only one species on one
of our trips.
Common dolphin (c) Paddy O'Dwyer - IWDG
However this were back to normal on Thursday, the day started
with a sighting of a minke whale followed shortly by a group of three harbour
porpoises. The group of harbour porpoises contained two adults and a juvenile
like most of the times we encounter this species they were travelling in a very
tight group. Later in the day we came across a group of ten common dolphins,
they approached the boat and spent a few minutes bow riding this provided us
with great views of the calves and juveniles in this group. Once they grew
tired of bow riding they appeared to swim off into the distance. Friday started
promisingly with a sighting of two minke whales early in the tour. One of these
minke whales was a very large animal certainly one of the biggest minkes I’ve
seen, it was accompanied by a juvenile animal and the two appeared to be
feeding and remaining in a similar area popping up infrequently and moving in
what seemed to be a large circle. We came across this pair again later in the
day they were still in the same area hours after our first sighting of them.
The day also produced lots of harbour porpoise sightings the first a group of
three that we almost missed as they were swimming quite close to the cliffs. We
then came across an individual harbour porpoise and later in the day we saw two
different groups of two animals. All the
harbour porpoise groups today consisted of adults as opposed to some of the
groups over the last few days which also featured some juveniles.
Minke whale (c) Paddy O'Dwyer - IWDG
Saturday
proved to be a bumper day for sightings with 11 sightings recorded for just one
day. The consisted of one group of 20 common dolphins this group was a great
mix of adults, juveniles and calves everyone on board got a great chance to see
how small the calves when compared with the fully grown adults. The day also
produced seven harbour porpoise sightings two of these were of individuals
three were of adult pairs and two were groups of three animals. As if that wasn’t
enough there were three minke whale sightings the first a group of three
animals one very large adult another adult and a juvenile. Later in the day we
came across a group of two with another single animal spotted further away from
this pair.
Common dolphin (c) Paddy O'Dwyer - IWDG
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