Barolo shearwater and some dolphin photos, Madeira

My only new species of bird from this holiday turned up towards the end of what had so far proven to be a slightly disappointing whale watching trip out of Calheta. To be fair, we had started off with fabulous views of a pod of about 30 bottlenose dolphins, probably showing better than I'd ever experienced previously with the species, but we had seen none of the hoped for whales. 

We had reached the furthest point from land, about 4 miles out from Jardim do Mar and stopped the boat for a final look at a more distant pod of dolphins when I noticed a shearwater on the opposite side of the boat, unfortunately about to fly into the glaring sunlight. This was exciting because by mid December virtually all seabirds have left this area and I didn't expect to see anything avian at sea. However, there was perhaps one possibility....

The bird had an odd fluttering flight low over the water, followed by more typical shearwater glides, but then it was frustratingly lost in the glare. Fortunately a few moments later it flew back out of the sunlight briefly and allowed me a better look. It was clearly a small bird of the Manx shearwater variety, and not one of the larger shearwaters such as Cory's which also breed around these islands. 

My excitement levels went up a notch, because before we travelled to Madeira, I'd done quite a bit of research into which species of seabird, if any, I had a chance of seeing in December. There was really only one, Barolo shearwater, and if I was lucky enough to see one, I didn't want to tick it based on just an assumption, I wanted to know exactly why it was a Barolo. So for weeks I'd studied the finer details of identifying this particular species because it was the only lifer I was likely to get on the holiday and if I did see one, I wanted to be able to eliminate the doubt of an extremely out of season Manxie.

Barolo shearwater © madeirabirds.com.
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Short-finned pilot whales, Madeira

Today I took a whale watching trip out of Canical in the east of Madeira, run by Sea Emotions.  Really enjoyable, they found us around 15 each of short-finned pilot whale and bottlenose dolphin. The pilot whales came very close to the boat and had at least a couple of calves with them.

This was my first encounter with this species. I have seen long-finned pilot whales previously off southern Australia, and I have to take the word of todays guides and the Australian guides that they are the species they claim, because separating them is virtually impossible in the field. However, on range short-finned are by far the most likely off Madeira and long-finned most likely off southern Australia. These pilot whales are resident around Madeira and have been well studied.