Trip Report, May 17th 2018
Trip report, Thursday May 17th. And what a trip it was!
An incredible 4 hours of world class whale watching off the Cork coast which saw us get up close and personal with 3 Humpback Whales, 15-20 Minke Whales, 100+ Common Dolphin a handful of Harbour porpoise and a lone Basking Shark.
Humpbacks were on the forefront of all of our minds as we steamed out from Courtmacsherry and rounded Seven Heads peninsula. However after over 2 hours on the water the best we could manage was a lone Basking Shark and couple of all too brief Minke Whale sightings. All seemed very quiet in this small sector of the North Atlantic.
A quick phone call to our good friends at Cork Whale Watch soon put us right where the action was.
We were very privileged to have experienced wildlife photographer Mike Brown on board. As we made our way south of Galley head Mike noticed a gathering of feeding kittiwakes a few hundred meters ahead of our boat “the Lady Patricia”. The kittiwakes were soon joined by some gannets and we quickly realised we were in the right area.
As we slowed down to investigate Mike screamed “Breach!!!”. He had noticed a Humpback whale fully breaching out of the water less than a kilometre away. For the next 45 minutes we were entertained by an array of Humpback behaviour. We witnessed at least 3 humpbacks “bubble netting”, “tail slapping” and “tail fluking”.
These were joined by good numbers of Minke Whales and Common Dolphin clearly unable to resist this fish feast.
Atlantic Whale and Wildlife Tours are very keen to take part in marine conservation and make our contribution to science. Any images of Humpback whales that we obtained will now be sent of to the IWDG for ID purposes. They will be able to establish whether this is the first time that these animals have been seen in Irish waters or if they are re-sightings. My bet would be on the later.
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