Sadly we were too late to see the pod of circa 15 common dolphins that Rich Stonier clocked up at the shivery hour of 7 am!
Ken Barnett, Ian Coote and the walrus arrived at a far more civilised hour of 10:30 But there were odd porpoises showing including calves. From recent events we were living in hope of a Risso's as the tide peaked and we were not to be disappointed.
I spotted a single large fin about half a mile away, and the others soon found a couple more. conditions were super calm and we soon picked up a much larger group of around twenty coming around Mackerel Point some distance out. It was a bit confusing with several animals spread quite widely and surfacing pretty randomly. A couple of boats moving around in the area also seemed to confuse the situation a bit but we did manage to see a couple of adults and a pretty small calf quite close (half a mile or so ) The main group moved further out to the North and were present at about three or four miles distant to the north ,still quite visible in the clear conditions. occasionally breaching and generally hanging in the same area. They began to move further out and headed out towards the west about three oclock with a bit of wind and tide making conditions less favourable and we eventually lost them. Porpoises continued to hold our interest and we had a very enjoyable 4 hours of intriguing cetacean watching with a few seabirds such as common scoter and a couple of red throated divers adding interest! I will leave Ken to illustrate the post!...
