Sightings Summary 2011

2011 Season Summary…

Hello, Ruth here! I’ve now come to the end of my 3rd season as a guide for Sea Life Surveys after another brilliant summer at sea! After huge amounts of work last winter from James and Popz both Sula Beag and Sula Crion did us exceptionally proud and looked very smart throughout the season whilst racking up some incredible sightings.

When conditions allowed us to get out to their feeding grounds 2011 brought us consistently good sightings of our favourite summer visitor – the minke whale. Whilst some individuals proved to live up to their reputation of being extremely sneaky others were much more social allowing us to have some superb close encounters. On several occasions this year we’ve been able to track these wonderful animals beneath the water as they swim around the boat by watching the white bands on their pectoral fins and practically look down their blowholes as they surfaced to take a breath!! On one special 4 hour trip in at the end of August we counted a grand total of 7 individual whales; certainly the most I have ever come across on a single trip – wow!! We also managed to take some cracking photo-ID shots… the star of 2011 for me, and SLS’s other guide called Ruth(!), has to be one particular minke whale named Knobble. With his/her distinctive dorsal fin, Knobble has been seen in around Mull almost every year since 2002 and we managed to catch up with him/her about 8 times this season alone becoming a very good friend of ours!! :-)

The awesome basking sharks (guide Jayne’s favourite!) came back very early this year – we saw the first ones on the 2nd of May on a stunning day, our earliest record of them! Andy Tait was onboard with his camera and took some spectacular footage. However they didn’t stay around for long and despite their early appearance sightings were down on last year; a trend that other areas in the UK also noted. However, like all wildlife does, they kept us on our toes and when they did appear we often saw them in large numbers… on several days Sula Beag was surrounded by around 30 of these huge beasties!! Very excitingly at the end of June when Mark Harding and Alex Mustard joined us aboard Sula Crion we were able to get a photograph of a tagged shark… we were amazed to discover it had been tagged off the south west coast of Ireland 2 months before hand.

We’ve had some fantastic sightings of common and bottlenose dolphins too… June was a particularly good month for common dolphin sightings with about 7 separate encounters. Playful, bow riding dolphins definitely have the knack of lifting everyone’s spirits after the very challenging gales the west coast experienced the month before! We can never predict when we might come across dolphins which I believe makes it an even more special event when we do. The resident porpoise never let us down and we had almost daily views of them including some very tiny calves and juveniles, such a lovely sight. One of my favourite sounds is to hear the porpoise “puffing” around the boat on a still day! The seals were also very reliable both on our half hour trips across Tobermory Bay and on our longer 7 hour Whalewatch Explorer where they provided us with great amusement when anchored in our favourite lunch spot, each day appearing to get a little braver and approach the boat slightly closer.

I cannot forget to mention some of the incredible birdlife either. Sadly “our” white tailed eagles which we are lucky enough to sail past every day were unsuccessful this year in rearing a chick. Whilst the pair sometimes disappeared for a week or so at a time they always returned and continued to grace us with their presence (and enormous 2.5m wingspan!). We also had some fantastic views of guide Ewan’s favourite – the golden eagle! Other highlights include large rafts of manx shearwaters, fulmars on fly-bys, diving gannets, puffins, guillemot and razorbill dads with their fluffy chicks, the bonxies which followed Sula Beag looking for ginger biscuits and an increased sightings of the beautiful arctic skuas.

The season has come to an end all too quickly again, but Lydia (aka Captain Admin) our brilliant office manager is staying in Tobermory over the winter and is keeping busy getting ready for 2012 which I’m sure will be upon us before we know it. 2012 is set to be an extra special season as very impressively it will be Sea Life Survey’s 30^th birthday which means plenty of celebrations are to be had for sure!! I for one am looking forward to it already.

Ruth :-)

Guide