Sightings Update 2009

We are still running our shorter wildlife trips throughout the winter months, November to March, with a number of both Wildlife Adventures and Ecocruz’s in October with successful sightings of Harbour Porpoise, Seals, Sea & Golden Eagles, Minke, Bottlenose & Orca, and a number of sea birds. We will be running these shorter trips subject to demand all year round, with some special festive cruises, that will include some essential mulled wine!

Our whale watching season has almost now come to an end, with our last Whalewatch Explorer at the end of October with the last Minke spotted on the 16th October, a month later than last season, very interesting.

On a daily basis we are having sightings of our resident Otter in Tobermory Bay. Giving us some fantastic views of this small mammal, regularly seen chomping on fish on the pontoon, or aboard the Mishnish yacht! ’He’ has affectionately been called Toby!

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Wildlife watching in October

It has been said by many that, whale dolphin and marine wildlife watching, is a waste of time in October.

HUH – nonsense. Sure enough, the basking sharks have gone and there is not the quantity of wildlife about, but the quality can be superb. For instance, the last two trips this week:-

DAY 1 – Lovely calm day with the sun, now lower in the sky, highlighting the magnificent colours of the islands and heather clad hills with a brittle clarity. We steamed for the Cairns and on the way spent time with family groups of porpoise and their calves. Groups seem to be larger at this time of year. At the Cairns the usual diving gannets, a few feeding auks in their winter plumage then a pomerine and a great skua. A little later, an enormous skein of geese heading south high overhead. No sign of whale or dolphin, so headed into the Cairns to look at the seal colonies including a grey with pup. Also a very large swarm of jelly fish Pelagica noctiluca. A pretty little thing with red dots on it’s head but invades fish farms and kills off the salmon..

Landed Waggy/Danny on the largest island in order to go to summit with telescope and portable VHF to scan for anything in the distance. He has wicked eyesight/gise and ability, so, he with telescope is quite lethal!! In the meantime we, on Sula Beag, drifted in shallow water for a quiet lunch.

Radioed Waggy expecting to hear he had spotted loads of stuff, only to be told there was nothing anywhere. At that very moment a minke surfaced not 20 metres away right in front of the boat. That whale had most certainly come to see us in very shallow water – as they do. Having collected Waggy, we gently followed that whale until interrupted by the sight of 2 red phalaropes feeding on surface plankton. A very rare sighting and quite unafraid of us as we drifted beside them – magic. Returning home we watched at close quarters, 2 golden eagles harassing a sea eagle.

DAY 2 – A calm grey day today but storm force winds forecast for later in the afternoon. We made it out to the Cairns in calm conditions. But as we were lunching, watching the seals and otters, or were the seals swimming to us to observe us? The wind suddenly started to gust with strength – oops!

Time to get home. Half way across, running with the rising seas, the coastguards issued a pan pan call for Ardnamurchan point not so far from where we were. So answered it. Changed course as directed and headed to the scene. Half way across there was a screaming shout from the top deck and Waggy hurtled into the wheelhouse shouting ’Orca’. And there, right enough, not 200 metres away was a very large male orca sail heading across our bow.

Oh why now? A life in danger and we have orca, a bull and cow. One quick pass to enable an ID shot between waves then off to join lifeboat and helicopter searching for a missing diver. Such torn emotions for all.

No, nothing much happens on our wildlife trips in October. POPZ

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End of season round up

I now have just a couple of days left of the 2009 season. Where the last 5 months have gone I don’t know but one thing is for sure, I have had the best summer and seen some amazing things.

Watching the minke whales has been incredible. The excitement onboard when a whale is spotted for the first time cannot be beaten. Whether it has been a distant glimpse of these stinky whales or an hour-long association with the boat it has always been special. On a still day listening to these animals surface has to be one of the best sounds! I was also lucky enough to be onboard to see a minke whale breach 300m from the boat, awesome! And the end of the season looks set to be full of surprises and treats too… on our 4 hour Wildlife Adventure on Friday morning we spotted a minke within 25 minutes of leaving Tobermory. We spent about 2 hours watching the whale; it was clearly foraging hard, circling around us in the tide lines in-between small groups of porpoise. There was lots of food in the area as the whales stuck around for several days in the same area. Just on Sunday I had one of my best sightings of the season, we sat watching a small hurry of seabirds forming when right between them 2 lunge-feeding whales – wow!!

Another highlight of the season for me has to include the basking sharks. Every time I see these enormous fish I am in awe, seeing their wide-open mouths coming towards the boat underwater is such a privilege. This season the sharks have been very good to us; we’ve seen them along the North West coast of Mull almost daily in August leaving everyone onboard extremely happy even when the weather has prevented us leaving the shelter of Mull. We’ve managed to do a lot of photo-id work on the sharks which is exciting. Some have had very distinctive marks and nicks on their fins so hopefully we’ll be able to get a better understanding of these mysterious fish if they are seen again, either in our waters or maybe even on the other side of the Atlantic!

Unfortunately the Orca and Risso’s dolphins have proved elusive to us (so far) this season (I’ll just have to come back again for another season!) but the common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins have certainly not disappointed. Nobody can fail to leave the boat without a huge smile on their face after spending time in the presence of playful dolphins. This was especially true when 4 adult bottlenose dolphins came right into Tobermory bay one morning last month!

Our resident harbour porpoise should also definitely not be overlooked. Watching the tiny calves over the summer nearly everyday and even once hearing them on the hydrophone has been brilliant. Other things to mention quickly which cannot be forgotten are the bizarre looking sunfish which returned in August, the Bloody Bay eagles, otters, seals with their pups, huge rafts of shearwaters, fulmars in flight, diving gannets… and of course… the plankton!!

Ruth

Guide