Bottlenose Dolphin Survey 30th July
Position: 57’ 26.322’ N 006’ 35.374’ W
Skye. One of the most beautiful islands in the Outer Hebrides. One of the wildest ones. With fantastic wildlife including orchids, otters and eagles. With impressive cliffs that take your breath away. We were just approaching these when our attention was drawn to an amazing flock of feeding birds on the water. Roughly 100 kittiwakes, accompanied by gannets, puffins, razorbills and even Manx Shearwater seemed to have a feast fit for a king. Could we push our luck and hope for a whale? And there it was as we headed into Loch Dunvegan. A minke. Seen by everyone. Again and again, from quite close. Fantastic for photo ID and close up observation. But hold on, is that a scar or a fresh wound just behind its dorsal fin? And why does it keep turning on its side? And there it was still, unable to move away from us. Our initial elation turned rapidly into grave concern about what was wrong with this whale – it certainly wasn’t behaving normally. The whale was obviously exhausted as its blow was showing, which unlike most of the other baleen whales, isn’t usually visible with a Minke. Also, it was surfacing as if something was weighing it down. Positioned between two creel pots the likely explanation was that it had got its tail fluke caught in creel ropes and it was struggling to free itself. With the wild Skye winds blowing all around us, all we could do was inform the coastguard. If the whale lasts the night, they might possibly be able to do something in the morning. We can only carry on our journey to Dunvegan.

Dunvegan had looked such a lovely place to travel to this morning, when we packed our things up in Harris. Go out for a nice meal as a special treat, yum! The journey this afternoon across the Little Minch was rough but exciting. It was great fun having the sea blown into your face during observation. Despite being hardly able to stand, we were able to spot a minke whale. Even better, we finally found a basking shark, a baby one, too! It took no notice of our big fat boat whatsoever and carried on feeding all around us. We had plenty of opportunity to take plankton samples for our Oxford students as well. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. After all, it is fantastic work that we do, exhilarating and important. Just today we were confronted with its limits.
There will be nicer things to see again. Let’s hope.
Regina Meyer, HWDT Volunteer