With three keen local volunteers , Ian Hotchin, Tony Lucas and Trevor Morris, we did our third Sea Trust Stena Europe ferry survey of the month making the most of the fine weather. With Sea State of 2-1 for all of the two legs of the trip, we should not have missed much with such a team.
The outward trip yesterday, produced 7 sightings of a total of 15 porpoises amd one unidentified dolphin.
Our second leg this morning produced 10 sightings including circa 110 Common Dolphins amd 10 porpoises. birdwise surprisingly few seen odd migrating hirundines and meadow pippits with Auks including puffins, manxies gulls etc. I for one prefer April without the showers!
Sash's Basking Shark record is extremely interesting, well done Sash, however it does sound unusually small , perhaps a calf at 12 feet or a juvenile at 15. A full grown basker would be up to twice this length although I appreciate it was a rule of thumb estimate. According to Wikkipedea, the largest recorded was just over 40 feet in length!
The first Sighting this year off the Irish Coast were 27th of March off Kerry and West Cork and so this is pretty much in line with those moving slowly east
Our Irish collegues in the Irish Whale and dolphin Group count them as "honourary Whales" which is good enough for me!
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