Humpback Whales Return to Courtmacsherry Bay – June 2020

We are delighted to announce that we have added another new individual to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group’s humpback whale catalogue. HBIRL98 which our guide Christopher O’Sullivan photographed on Monday is a new individual for Irish waters. This was one of three humpback whales we identified during a terrific week of whale watching.

What’s even more exciting the is that during a trip on Monday, June 8th we also saw the return of an old friend. In 2018 Cork photographer Joleen Cronin photographed “Barnacle Bill” fully breaching south of Inchydoney on the West Cork Coast. Back then this was also a new individual for Irish waters. On that occasion the whale refused to tail fluke. This made identification difficult. Yesterday HBIRL90 was similarly stubborn. However Christopher did manage to get the all important fluke shot on the one occasion it did tail fluke.

The third animal we recorded was HBIRL43. This animal has previously been recorded in Irish water but it was the first time Atlantic Whale and Wildlife Tours had the pleasure of recording this individual with its very distinctive tail fluke. As always we would like to thank the IWDG for helping us to ID these humpback whales.

During the week we also recorded huge numbers of minke whales, 600 plus common dolphins, a pod of Risso’s dolphin and a basking shark. The whale watching off the West Cork coast remains world class.