4 August 2022

Species seen today: Humpback whale, Minke whale, Harbour porpoises, Grey seal

We went out with 2 boats on our morning tour. On one of our boats, we saw 2 minke whales but it was very hard to watch them. They were coming to surface only once, twice before going for a dive. Also, they were displaying fishing behaviour - sudden unpredictable changes in their direction and speed. On the other boat we manage to see a humpback whale a couple of times but it seemed to be sleeping, very calm, but coming up twice and going for long dives. 
It seems the prey was very scattered today, so whales were moving quite long distances, and surfacing in a very upredictable way. The conditions were very demading as well  - choppy sea, with lot of white caps at the surface and sun glare, making it harder to spot the cetaceans.

On our afternoon tours we saw big flocks of birds, which were very active, but when we approached the feeding action stopped. We had a bit of luck, finnally, under one of the flock of birds, we saw a minke whale surfacing for few times. We also saw few splashes, glimses of little Harbour porpoises (2-3 individuals). One tour had great luck with a pod of jumping dolphins interacting with the boat. On the other boat we manage to see several individuals of minke whales scatered around a big area, with many flocks of birds around but unfortunately the behaviour was the same as in the morning, fast surfacing and long dives. We enjoyed watching a lot of marine birds and beautiful landscape around, as well as fun ride on this sunny day. Our last tour of the afternoon was able to spot a humpback whale being pretty active. Breaching once and then surfacing close to the boat.