Monday August 24, 2020

SIGHTINGS UPDATE

10am: This morning we got to spend time with a pair of finbacks on the Wolves Bank. We also saw grey and harbour seals, shearwaters, and a special sighting of a Mola mola before heading back to port!

1:30pm: This afternoon we had two finbacks feeding together offshore. They weren’t staying down long and were only make short moves between surfaces. One gave us a great big open mouth on one surface and we could see the upper and lower jaws, the baleen (including the asymmetrical colouration that matches the colouration of the lower jaw…white on right and dark on left), and right down the whale’s mouth! Very unusual behaviour and SO cool to see. Perhaps the whale found a smaller patch of food at the surface and decided to feed or perhaps she just wanted to open her mouth wide in a yawn-like motion! We also saw seals before heading back to St. Andrews.

5pm: This evening we found ourselves a minke whale, many harbour porpoise, and gulls. We got to see a few bald eagle juveniles and stopped with seals on the way back to St Andrews.