Whalewatch Explorer - 27th May

Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 27th of May 2013. Wonderful sunshine but strong winds meant we stayed within sheltered waters. Great day all the same with some superb bird sightings.... great white-tailed eagle action, red-throated and great northern divers, bonxies, gannets, puffins, shearwaters and several close fulmar flybys! :)

Wildlife Adventure - 26th May

Wildlife Adventure passengers - 26th of May 2013. Superb conditions today and some incredible encounters all within 4 hours! MINKE WHALE, lots of harbour porpoise (including one breaching!), white-tailed eagles, golden eagles, common seals and good numbers of shearwaters, auks and kittiwakes

Whalewatch Explorer - 25th May

Whalewatch Explorer passengers – 25th of May 2013. Great views of eagles today both white-tailed and a distant goldie! Also bonxies, lots of puffins, kittiwakes, shearwaters and terns to keep us entertained throughout the day. We visited our favourite spot for our lunch surrounded by large numbers of common and grey seals, white sand beaches and beautiful islands covered in wild flowers

Wildlife Adventure - 24th May

Wildlife Adventure passengers – 24th of May 2013. Gorgeous sunshine and fantastic sightings… 2 white-tailed eagles in flight, great views of several surfing porpoise, common seals, 2 golden eagles with their golden heads shining in the sunlight above Sula Beag and huge numbers of feeding auks, kittiwakes, shearwaters and terns :)

 

 

Common Seal from Whalewatch Explorer 21st May 2013

Great photo of a common seal taken by passenger Stuart Pike on Tuesday's Whalewatch, thanks Stuart :-)

 

 

Wildlife Adventure - 22nd May 2013

Wildlife Adventure passengers - 22nd of May 2013. Fantastic views of a white-tailed eagle in flight, common seals, a feeding otter and pomarine skua flying close to the boat. We also experienced 4 seasons in 4 hours from sunshine to a hail storm!

 

 

Whalewatch Explorer - 21st May 2013

Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 21st of May 2013. TWO MINKE WHALES TODAY!!! Also harbour porpoise, white-tailed eagles and lots of common and grey seals during our lunch stop at a sunny Cairns of Coll! Another big highlight was 3 species of skua.... great, Arctic and 8 long-tailed!! On our way home we also saw a roosting barn owl... maybe an SLS first??!

 

 

Ecocruz - 20th may

Ecocruz passengers 20/05/13 - Everyone enjoyed views of the huge profile of a White-tailed Eagle perched on a coastal crag. Gannets overhead and Guillemot flybys were also seen and Common Seals hauled out at their traditional site. An excllent plankton sample and high scores in the ecoquiz. Low cloud created a dramatic effect on surrounding landscapes.

Wildlife Adventure - 17th May

Wildlife Adventure passengers - 17th May 2013. Glorious sunshine and very calm seas where we saw a MINKE WHALE!!! It was a sneaky one, only surfacing a couple of times but it was the glint of sunlight off it's back that gave it away. Also had huge numbers of manx shearwater along with puffins, guillemots, razorbills, a storm petrel and plenty of diving gannets! Not forgetting the common and Atlantic grey seals that were very inquisitive today and wonderful views of the white tailed eagle! Very happy (and slightly pink) faces today! :-)      

Whalewatch Explorer - 16th May

Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 16th of May 2013. Great views of our second MINKE WHALE sighting of the year!! We also saw white-tailed eagle, porpoise and visited the beautiful Cairns of Coll on our lunch break with large numbers of common and grey seals, great to be back out there! :)

 

 

Sneaky minke whale from today's trip!

 

 

 

Wildlife Adventure - 14th May 2013

Wildlife Adventure passengers - 14th of May 2013. Glorious sunshine and fantastic sightings... white-tailed eagle in flight right over our heads, a group of porpoise including some small juveniles which you could see surfing beneath the waves, common seals, an otter AND huge numbers of kittiwakes, auks, terns, shearwaters and gannets feeding hard on a strong tide line :-)

 

 

Whalewatch Explorer - 9th May 2013

Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 9th of May 2013. FIRST MINKE WHALE OF 2013!!! We found it feeding amongst large numbers of feeding shearwaters, gannets, kittiwakes and auks.... what a fantastic sight! Welcome back minkes!

 

Short video by Andy Tait of the minke from today's trip, you can just see it surface at 20 seconds in :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94RLYTsCc_g&feature=youtu.be

 

Wildlife Adventure - 8th May

Wildlife Adventure - 8th May 2013. Bit of a wet and windy trip today! Plenty of tea, coffee and ginger biscuits all round. Lovely views of one of our white-tailed eagles, great Northern divers with checkerboard plumage, gannets, nesting shags and some Canada and greylag geese at Calve Island. Just enough time to dry off ready for our 7 hour trip tomorrow!

Open Day 7th May 2013

Open Day - 7th of May 2013. Many thanks to all the locals who joined us aboard our Ecocruz this morning! We had beautiful sunny weather and stunning views of a white-tailed eagle, great northern diver, common seals and a sneaky porpoise!

 

 

 

Open Day – 7th of May 2013. Some great sightings on our second Ecocruz of the day with the local white-tailed eagles stealing the show once again! As before we also listened to the hydrophone, undertook a plankton trawl, had delicious food from The Tobermory Fish Co.Ltd and tried out the new and improved Ecoquiz with some very impressive scores! Thanks to all for coming!

Great to have the wee sister, Sula Crion, almost ready for the season! (New windows, engine mounts, and more!!)

Island Hopping - 6th May 2013

Sula Beag was out today helping an adventurous group of folk land on some remote islands around the stunning Isle of Coll. Whilst out 'island bagging' we also saw porpoise, large numbers of grey seals, pomarine skuas, little terns, great northern divers and white-tailed eagles. After a wild weekend the conditions improved and we were on the lookout for some bigger beasties, no luck today but it's looking promising for Thursday's Whalewatch... :-)

Spotted on the Wildlife Adventure 5th May 2013!!!

Here's some of the wildlife that appeared on our recent 4 hour trip!!!

Great Northern Diver

Tobermory Otter (camera shy)

Harbour Porpoise

Wildlife Adventure - 5th May 2013

Wildlife Adventure passengers - 5th of May 2013. Some wonderful sightings on today's 4 hour trip despite the rain! We drifted amongst a group of harbour porpoise for half an hour, saw lots of common seals, 2 otters, had close views of a great northern diver and white-tailed eagles :-)

Whalewatch Explorer - 2nd May 2013

Luvery Chubberly. Whalewatch today, just so great to be out there greeting wildlife friends. Weather definitely very unspringlike, but we had a great trip. Plenty of feeding now especially the shearwater and great clumps of plankton to keep them busy. There will be whale in there somewhere, but eluded us today. Plenty of porpies being a bit springlike by enjoying a spot of surfing behind us. A bri...ef stop over to check that Sanna Bay has survived the winter storms - it has!! On way home Ruth spotted what she thought was a basking shark below the surface and if Ruth says that, then she being the shark expert she is - I can only but believe her. We saw our first shark at this time last year. Our passengers were great despite the cold rain and wind that got up. Such nice folk come out with us it is a priviledge to be showing them the wonders of the area. POPZ