Common dolphins and minke whale, Sea of the Hebrides

Our departure from Barra was delayed by three days due first to a bow thruster failure on the MV Isle of Lewis followed by a failure of some steelwork on the rescue vessel, MV Lord of the Isles. Finally after days of anxiety and uncertainty, not least about where we were to stay for the extra nights, MV Clansman came to our aid and amid emotional scenes at the harbour got us off the island.

Not that the three extra days weren't time well spent, the bulk of the barnacle goose and all of the whooper swan passage happened after our official leave date, possibly the single greatest experience of the holiday whilst arguably the bird of the holiday turned up in the shape of the Hornemann's Arctic redpoll.

However, finally we departed Barra at 13:30 today and headed off into the murk which shrouded the island with the forecast of 40mph wind and heavy rain during he journey. It turned out ok though, yes we got wet and buffeted but we still spent most of the five hour journey on deck and saw some decent sea birds and at least 20 common dolphins. Just before we arrived at the entrance to the Sound of Mull we came across a feeding frenzy of mainly gannets and kittiwakes which were harassed by juvenile pomarine and long-tailed skuas and right in the middle of it all emerged a breaching minke whale. A great end to the holiday, I then packed up and went inside to dry off and enjoy a hot meal before we arrived in Oban.

Earlier on the trip we had seen at least nine petrels, one of which was certainly Leach's, but most of the rest appeared to be storm petrels.

Common dolphins.

Bottlenose dolphins in the Sound of Barra

This evening a pod of five bottlenose dolphins were in the Sound of Barra as we watched from the jetty at Eoligarry.  They put on a great display, breaching and spyhopping for around 20 minutes or more.

On Saturday 24th September we crossed the Sea of the Hebrides on the Oban to Castlebay ferry and saw a minke whale just off the north tip of Mull and several common dolphins.

Crossing the Minch on Loch Seaforth

A great crossing of the Minch today on the Ullapool to Stornoway ferry and back, with at least 3 minke whales seen together, 2 Risso's dolphins, around 40 common dolphins and 5 harbour porpoise. However, it was the blows off Tiumpan head which really took the breath away, two, three, four blows in quick succession, I didn't see the animals but clearly large whales, fin or humpback. An exhilarating experience from a ferry in UK waters. 

A large whale blow, possibly fin because it's tall and slim?

...and this one is possibly humpback because it's a a bit less tall and more spread out. I'm not certain of either of these though, the wind and other factors obviously effect the shape of the blow, and I'm just not expert enough to know for sure.

Common dolphins.

Fin, Humpback and Minke whales in the Minch

I never thought that any whale watching trip in the UK could match those that I experienced in Australia and New Zealand over the past few years, but todays trip with Hebridean Whale Cruises out of Gairloch with Steve Truluck and Rosie Barrett achieved it. I was absolutely delighted when Steve said at the start that we were going to head for Tiumpan Head on the east coast of Lewis because I knew that there were some big whales in that area, but it was a long journey from Gairloch and some of the smaller stuff had to wait until later as we sped north west for around an hour. It was worth it though....

Finally we arrived off Tiumpan head. There were common dolphins all around us, many leaping out of the water, some so close to the boat that it felt like I could have touched them, and I could see others swimming under the boat. Suddenly right in the middle of them a huge shape appeared on the surface, perhaps 10x longer than the dolphins, a fin whale, the second largest animal ever to exist and it was just 15m in front of us! The dolphins seemed to enjoy its presence and surfed around it! An incredible moment. After a minute or so it arched it's back and dived, revealing it's fin which is set back on this species, about two thirds of the way along its body.

Suddenly a shout went up that there was another fin whale behind us and turning I saw the great arch of a body as a second animal also dived, again with dolphins all around it. For several minutes the whales kept surfacing and diving, and all of the time they had an escort of common dolphins. A truly breathtaking experience.

It's easy to forget when looking at these photos that common dolphins are around 2 - 2.5m in length and in the photo above you can't even see the dorsal fin of the whale because it's below the water. As I said previously, the dorsal fin is set back on fin whale but even so we're only looking at about two thirds of the animal in this photo.

Point of Stoer Lighthouse

A full day not watching whales and dolphins today at possibly the best mainland site in North West Scotland. I spent seven hours here and saw just one white-beaked dolphin. Still, it's a very scenic spot and there were lots of birds, skuas, shearwaters, divers, auks, twite etc., but best of all, a hobby flew over the lighthouse and away south. I'm not sure if I've ever seen Hobby in Scotland before, but certainly not in this area.

Sea of the Hebrides - Barra to Tiree

A great crossing of the Sea of the Hebrides on our way from Castlebay on Barra to Scarinish on Tiree, with the highlights being a pod of at least 50 common dolphins and a brief sighting of a minke whale.

There were plenty of the usual seabirds to be seen, including good numbers of auks and shearwaters, but no storm petrels on this crossing.