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.

Bottlenose dolphins, Flamborough Head

Great to see a pod of around 20 bottlenose dolphins off Flamborough Head today, including at least one baby. Also today around 50 grey and common seals.

From the Ullapool to Stornoway ferry

No visit to Ullapool is complete without a day trip on the ferry to Stornoway and back. It's not as good a dedicated whale watching trip, but at £20 a head as a foot passenger it's a lot cheaper and offers the chance of seeing a few decent cetaceans and seabirds. Today I caught the 10:30am ferry from Ullapool, we arrived at Stornoway at 1pm and left at 2pm, back in Ullapool for 4:45pm. If you want to go ashore you've hardly got time to get past the ferry car park at Stornoway before you need to be back on the boat but then that's not what I was here for. I was here for the boat journey.

The plan is pretty much the same as on the whale watching trip, look out for large groups of sea birds feeding and if you find one you may well have hit the jackpot. The only problem is the ferry just ploughs on, sticking to it's set course and speed and doesn't really care too much about what you have seen. It's not going to stop to let you have a closer look, you have to rely on birds and cetaceans being close enough and obliging enough for you to get a decent look at them. 

The photo above is looking south from the ferry towards Skye, you can even make out the Old Man of Storr and in the foreground you can see a flock of gannets feeding. A couple of minutes scanning through these and a minke whale revealed itself briefly about four times. Not a great view but decent enough to get a positive identification.

Whale watching in the Minch

When I made plans to visit northern Scotland in the middle of August, my main hope was that I would see a few whales and dolphins because late summer is a peak time for seeing them. It was always going to be a longshot because as somebody said, "there's a whole lot of nothing out there" and I expected long periods of seeing nothing except the sea, but my attitude is if you don't try you don't see so get out there and give it a go. I certainly won't see them sat at home.

There are three requirements when it comes to seeing cetaceans. Firstly you need to go to the right places, secondly you need to go at the correct time of year and finally you need a huge slice of luck. With this in mind, today was always going to be the big day, a trip out into the Minch with Hebridean Whale Cruises from Gairloch. It was the right time of year and if anybody could get me to the right places it was these guys. Now I just needed the luck.

Just getting on the trip was a mammoth achievement because the bookings go so fast, especially this year when due to Covid restrictions they have been running less trips. For three weeks prior to the bookings becoming available online I had checked five or six times a day, morning, noon and night, it was almost an obsession, hoping to be able to book for today, the 17th August and the only day I could really make this week without disrupting my entire holiday. Finally, just after midnight last Thursday, the dates appeared and at 5:30am the same day I booked my place. Less than 12 hours later the trip was sold out.

I've been on plenty of whale watching trips in the past, especially off Australia and New Zealand, but it was obvious right from the start that this was going to be a trip unlike any other that I have been on. All of the other trips allow you to wander freely around on a largish boat in your own clothing, often with small children wandering around and the Australian trips in particular provide you with a cup of tea and a slice of cake, all very civilised. Not this one. First we had to don full waterproof gear as provided by the company, thick padded stuff to keep you warm as well as dry, and over that we had to put on a life jacket. 

Then there was the seating arrangements. There was only space for 12 people to sit and on our trip we only had 10 to allow a bit more space between us, though I really don't think that Covid could have survived this trip! They weren't normal seats, it was more like sitting on a horse with the seat between your legs with a small hand rail on the back of the seat in front for you to hold onto. There would be no wandering around on this boat, no toilets and certainly no tea and cake or small children. This boat was built for speed.

It was a four and a half hour trip covering a large area of the Minch, the sea between mainland Scotland and the Outer Hebrides. Our route took us from Gairloch to the north end of Skye, then up to the Shiant Islands off Lewis and a little further north beyond that, before turning and heading back to Gairloch.  Fortunately I remembered to plot the route on an app on my phone and we covered about 72 miles in total.

Wildlife in the oceans tends to be concentrated around food sources and so large parts of the trip involved moving at high speed, bouncing over waves with spray crashing over the boat as we made our way to and from favoured feeding grounds. On the way back especially we must have endured a full 45 minutes of this, every 30 seconds spray covered the boat, it was like taking a never ending shower with all of your clothes on and it was relentless. Relentless, wonderful and exhilarating, with breathtaking scenery as we made our way past the islands. It was worth the money for the journey back alone, real high octane stuff, the kind of thing that some people pay good money for minus the whales and dolphins!

The whole trip was just a wonderful experience from start to finish. When we arrived back at the harbour I could barely walk when I got off the boat!

Minke whale probably juvenile.

We saw at least two minke whales, an adult and a juvenile. The animal at the top of the post is the adult. Juveniles don't accompany their parents and these two probably aren't related, they've just been brought together by a convenient food supply. We watched them feeding in amongst the gannets for a good 30 minutes, occasionally lunge feeding. The juvenile surfaced right by the boat on one occasion, so close I could hear it's blow. What an experience.

Bottlenose dolphins, Chanonry Point

Chanonry Point on the Black Isle near Inverness is one of the best places in the UK to watch bottlenose dolphins from land. Today there was a pod of about 20 dolphins which contained at least three calves.

I've just started a week long tour of northern Scotland hoping to see a few whales and dolphins and this was a great start. I'll be spending a few days in the north east around John O'Groats before heading west along the north coast of Scotland to Durness and then dropping down to Ullapool. It can be all very hit and miss with cetaceans and I might spend the next seven days watching the sea, but I've got three boat trips planned which should give me a better than average chance, plus hopefully I'll see a few decent birds as well. Whatever happens it should be a great experience. Today at Chanonry Point, three summer plumage red-thoated divers flew past, a black guillemot, 20 gannets and a few each of Sandwich and common terns.

Bottlenose dolphins, Cardigan Bay

Just for a change I varied my route home from Swansea today and went via New Quay and Cardigan Bay. It's a beautiful route and when you've got most of the day to get home the extra hour's driving seems insignificant when compared to the nightmare of the M4/M5/M6. 

I always try to stop off somewhere to have a look for the bottle-nosed dolphins which frequent the bay, apparently the largest UK population. When I arrived at New Quay there was a dolphin watching boat about to go out with a few available spaces, so for £15 it seemed a good way to spend an hour and get close up to the dolphins, and so it proved. Probably the best dolphin watching trip I've ever been on in the UK and certainly better than spending the hour queuing on the M6 at Birmingham where the only thing I'd get close up to would have been the bumper of the lorry in front.

Even before we got on the boat I'd spotted a couple of dolphins from the jetty, a mother and calf. We saw these very well during the trip and I suspect that most of my photos are of this couple, but there were also at least three other bottlenose dolphins in the area as well and these also came quite close.

Whale watching and seabirds at Marwick Head, Orkney

Photo: Minke whale.

A dull grey day with occasional drizzly rain couldn't dampen the excitement at Marwick Head. Perched on top of a spectacular sea cliff we watched at least two probably three minke whales feeding. The cliffs below held sizable populations of guillemots, razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes and a few puffins, all crammed into every available space and if any of them dared to leave their ledges they were harassed by marauding bonxies and arctic skuas. On our way back to the car a corncrake called from an iris bed but refused to show itself.

Minke whale at Duncansby Head

Duncansby Head at John O'Groats is one of the top cetacean watching places in mainland Britain and is where I saw a pod of orcas in August 2018. Tonight we are staying near Thurso in preparation for our ferry over to Orkney tomorrow, so what better way to pass an afternoon than a walk along the cliffs to the stacks and then down to the nearby beach at the Bay of Sannick.

This is as wild a place as any I have been, there is a tremendous feeling of remoteness here. The cliffs are full of seabirds, mainly fulmars but also four species of auk, kittiwakes and shag, and they are harassed by patrolling bonxies.

But in my opinion it is that stretch of sea between the mainland and Orkney, known as the Pentland Firth, where the real excitement is, because this is where the whales and dolphins are usually seen.

It didn't disappoint today, I had a nice view of a minke whale breaking the surface several times in amongst a large raft of auks, before finally arching its back and deep diving. Perhaps surprisingly given how many other species of cetacean I have seen, this was my first minke but my seventh species of whale overall, following blue, fin, sperm, southern right, humpback and northern bottlenose.

Also today, a nice view of a Risso's dolphin which was about my fourth or fifth sighting of the species.

Northern Bottlenose Whales, Firth of Clyde

There has a been a group of three northern bottlenose whales in the Firth of Clyde since about mid August but they only get reported intermittently and have been pretty far ranging, initially reported for a few days from near Lochgilphead, then from Great Cumbrae island near Largs and finally a week or so ago from Arrochar. I drove through the first and the last of these places on my way to Mull of Kintyre last Sunday, and then passed through them again today on my way home. I did keep stopping at various places for a scan of the lochs hoping to spot them, but I always seemed to be a week or so behind the whales and had no great expectation of seeing them today.

However, I'd just gone about a mile past the turning for Garelochhead at the southern end of Loch Lomond when I got a message that the whales were now in Gare Loch, just 10 miles from where I was. At the next roundabout I made a U-turn and headed back. A great decision as it turned out, because the whales showed very well swimming in amongst the boats and yachts.

Hector's Dolphins, Akaroa, South Island, New Zealand

Our last day in New Zealand and it was a cracker, loads of Hector's dolphins, white-flippered penguins, New Zealand fur seals, amazing sting rays and 4 species of shearwater, including Bullers which was new for me. Hector's dolphins are the smallest and one of the rarest with a very unusual 'Mickey Mouse ear' shaped dorsel fin.

Whale watching Kaikoura, South Island New Zealand

Photo: male Sperm whale diving

Whale watching in Kaikoura today and what a fabulous day, we saw a single sperm whale and many dusky dolphins, both of which were new for me. Also today two new species of albatross and a few other decent sea birds.

The dugongs and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins of Monkey Mia

Photo: Mother and calf dugong.

The Shark Bay World Heritage Area covers around 2.2 million hectares and is about a 10 hour drive north of Perth, best accessed from Monkey Mia. There are many reasons for its listing as a World Heritage Area, one of which are the wonderful stromatolites at Hamelin Pool which deserve a post all of their own. Another reason is that it is home to a large population of dugongs which feed on the seagrass in the bay just offshore. Dugongs are neither whales or dolphins, they are in fact related to manatees, and are often called seacows, with Shark Bay having around 10% of the world population, about 10,000 animals. The holes you can see are not blow holes because the species does not have blow holes. They are in fact the dugongs nostrils and as you might expect, the eyes are behind the nostrils as you can see more clearly in the photo below.

Today we managed to see about 15 of these wonderful creatures, as well as about 10 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins and a few awesome loggerhead turtles.

Humpbacks at Exmouth, Western Australia

It's getting a little late in the season now for whale watching from Exmouth, but we still managed to see a few female humpbacks with calves which was nice. The animal above is a calf.

Mother and calf humpback whale.

Exmouth is an amazing place, not a particularly beautiful town, but it really feels like you are in the outback or in a frontier town. Emus walking around the streets, warning signs about dingos and some familiar species not looking quite so familiar as I expected.

Take the bird above for example. It's a crested pigeon, quite common across all of Australia including in the major cities of the south and east.This however is of the western race whitlocki which seems to me to be much brighter than others I have seen.

Blue Whale, Humpback Whale and Southern Right Whale, Dunsborough, Western Australia

We'd only been out about 10 minutes, less than half a mile offshore I would say when one of the crew standing next to me said "I'm sure that's a blue over there".  The skipper immediately turned the boat and headed over. This is the same guy who just a few minutes earlier had told me that they had seen a blue whale last week but it had only surfaced once never to be seen again, so I was a little nervous to say the least. The chance of seeing a blue whale, the largest animal ever to exist was the dream of a lifetime, but would it reappear or would this prove to be a shatteringly close but ultimately failed dream? How many more opportunities would I get?

Fortunately the animal did reappear and broke the surface several times giving us some great views, though not quite the vaudeville performance which is usually put on by humpbacks! Perhaps not quite up there with the Orca I saw off mainland Caithness last year which were the highlight (so far) of my career as an amateur naturalist, but not far short and still a fantastic experience.

Albatrosses and Whales, Port Fairy pelagic, South East Australia

Snowy albatross

"Wanderer at 6 o'clock!", the cry went up and sent shivers down my spine. This was the moment I had been dreaming of for years, the appearance of a great albatross during a southern ocean pelagic. We'd been at sea for six hours, we were 35 miles offshore from Port Fairy, Victoria, over the edge of the continental shelf and the sea bed was nearly a kilometer below us. We'd seen many albatrosses already, but they were all of the smaller type, in this region often referred to as molyhawks. Four species in fact, shy, black-browed, Indian yellow-nosed and Campbell albatross, all with wingspans of 2.5m or less.

The new arrival was considerably bigger, a wandering albatross with a wingspan of up to 3.5m, the longest of any living bird. This awesome and majestic bird glided past the boat without a single flap of the wings, dwarfing the nearby molyhawks and taking my breath away. Over the next hour or so the bird stayed with us and was joined by an immature bird, as well as two other species of great albatross.

Orca! Duncansby Head

Photo: Orca, bull #72 of the 27s pod.

I knew that orca had been sighted in the Caithness area in the days before I left home for a week in the far north of Scotland, thanks to a series of messages being posted on the "Caithness and North Sutherland Cetacean sightings" Facebook group, but catching up with them was always going to be a challenge. They seemed pretty wide ranging, often going north into the Orkney archipelago as well as all around the coast to the west and south. I resigned myself to the fact that they were just the stuff of dreams, something to look out for while I was in the area, but not a serious proposition.

The town of Lossiemouth is on the most northerly point of the south coast of the Moray Firth near Inverness, and it can be hard to believe that from here there is still enough land left in the UK for you to be able to drive north for another four hours, but that's exactly what I was faced with today as I left my hotel and started my journey to Melvich on the extreme north coast of Scotland.

When I set off I had no intention of looking for orca, they were something I might look for on another day, today was just a day of travel. However, soon I received news that a family party of seven orca had been seen passing Duncansby Head near John O'Groats and later they were seen feeding to the north of Freswick Bay. I was tempted but would they hang around? It seemed the perfect day for viewing, with good light and relatively flat calm seas with just a light breeze, so I decided that it was just too good an opportunity to miss and I set my SatNav for John O'Groats.

Photo: Orca, bull #34 of the 27s pod.

Duncansby Head lies a mile or two to the north east of John O'Groats, a small, scattered village famous for being the most northerly inhabited point of mainland Britain. The scenery here is dominated by the islands of Orkney, less than 10 miles away to the north, whilst to the south lie the oddly shaped Stacks of Duncansby with their mighty cliffs and seabird colonies. It's a very wild and remote place, where the Pentland Firth meets the North Sea and though never matching the west coast for seascapes and rugged beauty, it has a remoteness almost unique in mainland Britain. None of that matters to me now though, Duncansby Head will be forever associated with surely the most dramatic and exciting wildlife experience of my life.

However all of that still seemed a long way off and the orca were still a dream, because at the moment that I set the SatNav for John O'Groats I was still a good two hour drive from where I needed to be. Would the orca stick around for that long?

Humpbacks at Whalers Way, Southern Eyre Peninsular, Australia

Rock parrots, tawny-crowned honeyeaters, emus, western grey kangaroos, Humpback whales, southern right whales, New Zealand fur seals and stunning views over the Great Australian Bight, this really is the wildest and most incredible place

If the world was flat then this is where the edge would be, this is the eastern end of the Great Australian Bight. If you set out in a boat and headed in the direction that we are looking here, west over the sea, it would be 1300 miles before you next hit land and when you did, it would be the same country just the other side of the bay. The scale of the place is phenomenal. In truth, in a flat world it seems almost like this is the opposite edge of the world to the Outer Hebrides, which have a similar feel and a similar sense of vastness. And the wildlife here just adds to that sense of being on the opposite edge, a group of kangaroos hop away as you approach, an emu appears on the ridge ahead, rock parrots fly up from your feet and a group of whales are blowing out at sea.

Which monster lives in this cave?

Common bottlenose dolphins and a first look at Port Lincoln, South Australia

Mother and calf common bottlenose dolphins close inshore at Port Lincoln. There's another species of bottlenose dolphin in Australia called Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin which is also known as inshore dolphin, but this is not that species because it doesn't occur in South Australia,

Pacific Gull, Port Lincoln

I must admit to being a little unsure as to what to expect from Port Lincoln when I was travelling here. I assumed that moving from the tropics to South Australia in the middle of the Australian winter might be a bit of a shock to the system. I also assumed that the town might be a little more industrialised and less touristy than some of the other places that I had called home over the past few weeks. Finally, it was likely to offer a quite different suite of birds to those I was used to further north.

As usual I was up at dawn. Josh had to get to work early so I had breakfast with him and then prepared to head out. Before I did so however, I had a quick look from our apartment and immediately added two birds to my Australia list which were just about as far apart on the spectrum of Australian birds as you could imagine. The first was a blackbird, an introduced species here, brought by the early Europeans to make them feel more at home.

The second was a major target species of the holiday, an adult Pacific gull landed on the roof opposite. At this point I should mention, we're staying on the marina and the roof opposite is only about 50m away but is on the other side of the main channel out of the marina.

Coming from the UK where I can often expect to record 10 species of gull or more at the Pennington Flash Gull roost, it seems a little odd to me that the there are only three regularly occurring species of gull in Australia, and one of those only started breeding in the mid 20th century. I mean I know that Australia is a remote continent but you'd think that gulls would be about the best placed of all birds to reach it and colonise. Other seemingly less likely species are here, osprey, cattle egret etc. Even the sea bird mecca that is New Zealand fares little better when it comes to gulls.

Australian humpback dolphins, Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia

Fraser Island is a magical place with so much to see, but for me these beautiful Australian humpback dolphins stole the show, what absolute beauties! They were swimming just offshore near the ferry terminal at River Heads near Hervey Bay and are apparently virtually resident.

Someone once said that real birds eat fish, and that's something I can really relate to. Fish eating birds are generally something special. However in Australia I'd have too beg to differ and say that real birds eat crabs!

I was walking along the beach on Fraser Island today when this stonking beach thick-knee walked out from the vegetation calling. This is a species which in my experience is quite timid and will not allow close approach, however this bird walked towards me and was obviously quite agitated.  I assume that it must have had a nest or chicks nearby, but I didn't dwell too long in the area. Like all beach birds, beach thick-knee is under threat due to its preference for nice sandy beaches which unfortunately also attract people.