Unfortunately due to unsuitable conditions we only made it
out on three days this week.
Minke Whale (c) PaddyO'Dwyer - IWDG
On Monday 17th, we observed a rather small sized
minke whale on the morning trip. We encountered a similar sized minke in a
similar area on the evening trip, while this is likely to be the same animal
the lack of any definable individual characteristics means that I cannot be
certain. Shortly after seeing the minke we came across a harbour porpoise that
only surfaced twice close to the boat before disappearing. Later on that trip
we came across a group of 5 common dolphins, there was a harbour porpoise in
the same area as this group. They seemed to take little to no notice of the boat
and swam right past us. On the way back to Ventry we came across another minke
whale. It’s likely this individual was different to the one we saw earlier due
to the fact that it was much larger.
Gannet (c) Paddy O'Dwyer - IWDG
Brief weather windows on Wednesday 19th and
Friday 21st allowed us to perform a single trip on each day. Wednesday’s
trip was in the evening and despite the bad weather we saw two minke whales
very close to each other in an area with plenty of seabirds. Seabirds,
especially gannets can be very useful in locating whales and dolphins. Sea
birds often form groups while feeding on fish that have been forced towards the
surface by the cetaceans feeding on them below the water. On Friday we only
ventured out on a morning trip and with the help of some feeding gannets we encountered
a single minke early in the trip. Shortly after leaving this minke behind us we
encountered a group of two minkes that appeared to be feeding together, these
two appeared to be similar in size to the group of two that we had yesterday.
Gannets Feeding (c) Paddy O'Dwyer
In addition to all these sightings we had plenty of other
wildlife to keep us entertained. As per usual the grey seals had a good look at
us while we were looking at them. There was also plenty of bird life also with
all the usual suspects including puffins, cormorants, gannets, gulls and many
more. The Monday trip also provided me with my first sighting of the red deer
on Inishvickillaun.
They can be hard to spot on the island despite being there in large number and
relatively large size. While deer are not quite the mammals I’m here to observe
it’s pretty special to see them on an island on the very edge of Europe.
Deer on Inisvickillaun (c) Paddy O'Dwyer - IWDG
No comments:
Post a Comment