If Ireland is famous for anything it has to be it's changeable weather conditions, controlled entirely by the North Atlantic's jet stream. For the last 4 weeks the jet stream seems to be clamped in position over Ireland and is forecast to continue that way for the remainder of August, feeding us a never ending supply of low pressure systems with windy weather, bouts of rain and high Atlantic swell. I am sure it's been the most unsettled August we've ever had over the last 50 years or more, and no sign of any improvement in the week ahead.
Our whale watching exploits have been seriously curtailed by the poor weather conditions and there has been just a handful of days in August when the sea has been settled enough for whale watching.
Cetaceans are still very scarce in our patch of the ocean with just a few minke whales about and the occasional fin whale. Even common dolphins are in lower numbers than I've ever seen before.
I have not seen a single bait ball of sprats so far this season, it has become very obvious that they have been overfished to the point of extinction. No sprats about means no prey for whales to feed on, hence the very low numbers of them, they have moved on in search of better feeding opportunities elsewhere.
A clip shared here of a few highlights from the last couple of weeks. Minke whales up first, lunge feeding with common dolphins and a crowd of manx shearwaters, followed by a lunge feeding fin whale in company with common dolphins, and last of all a small group of common dolphin bow riding with a few tiny new born calves amongst them, showing the speed and agility they are born with.
We had a lot of settled weather in the first half of July that gave us good conditions for spotting cetaceans off the West Cork coastline. The second half of July is not looking good with the dreaded jet
stream sweeping over us once more keeping the weather in an unsettled state. We found plenty of common dolphins about on all trips but whales in pitifully low numbers. 2024 has been a disappointing season so far and no surprise either, based on the fact there are hardly any sprat shoals left for the whales to prey upon. After 24 years of watching whales feeding at close quarters it becomes very clear that minke, fin and humpback whales all visit Ireland's coastal waters to feed almost exclusively on sprats and juvenile herrings as their preferred prey, just occasionally feeding on lesser sand eels if there are no sprats to be found.
The lack of sprats is entirely down to the overfishing of them every autumn, when they shoal together in sheltered bays and harbours attempting to spawn. Huge, locally owned trawlers have persistently and skillfully removed every shoal they can find over the last 30 years to the point of near extinction. The coastal waters of Ireland, once teeming in fish and great biodiversity have become almost barren as a result of this ill advised fishery. Even pollack, Ireland's most abundant predatory fish species, like all other species, are becoming scarce due to a lack of sprats to feed on.
ICES has issued advice to ban commercial fishing of pollack based on dwindling stocks, They are not being overfished but starved out of existence by the removal of the vital supply of these miraculous little silvery and prolific fish that exist in their billions, feeding exclusively on zooplankton in the coastal waters of Ireland. There are no sprats to be found offshore, out in the open Atlantic, they are sprats that are indigenous to the coastal
Due to a last minute group cancellation we have spaces available on tomorrow's trip going at 10:30, with wonderfully calm weather forecast.
Over the past week sightings have included scattered minke whales, plenty of common dolphins, lots of sunfish, manx shearwaters and puffins, grey seals and on Wednesday last we saw 2 fin whales, our second day sighting these giants.
A short clip of one of them shared here with the usual escort of common dolphins.
Today is World Ocean Day when we are supposed to celebrate our human interaction and awareness of the world's oceans.
The sad reality is that the oceans are polluted with chemicals, nuclear material, overfished and choking in pieces of plastic. All the while this situation is getting worse with no improvement in any of those factors. There's not much to celebrate when the oceans have had nothing but abuse from humanity. It would be wonderful to see any change for the better health of the world's oceans.
It seemed appropriate to be out whale watching on World Ocean Day and we were duly rewarded by a surprise encounter with our first fin whale of the season amongst a lot of dolphins and scattered minke whales. Fin whales usually show up later in June or early July, so this one is an early arrival.
A short clip of today's fin whale that shows clearly how dolphins like to bow ride in front of large whales, just as they do with boats.
Up until the last few days, the month of May has produced a lot of settled weather making ideal conditions for whale, dolphin and shark watching on most days.
The huge swarm of basking sharks that were all along the West Cork coastline during May, mysteriously evaporated on the 21st and not a sighting since, or any clue as to their current whereabouts.
It is disappointing that we have had no further humpback activity, May has become the best time of year for them over the last few years, until now. We are still finding minke whales and porpoises in low numbers on almost every outing and common dolphins in abundance on every trip, often running into hundreds of them.
A short clip of them shared here showing their exuberance and boundless energy, sprinting alongside and bow riding the boat as they like to do.
West Cork has certainly been the place to see basking sharks over the past week or two. There were so many of them assembled in the harbour entrance for a couple of days, it was difficult to move through them without colliding with one. Dense concentrations of zooplankton is keeping them happy, all sharks mouth agape gorging themselves on plankton like there's no tomorrow, whilst that scything tail drives them gently through it.
We are seeing minke whales in low numbers on all our trips and common dolphins in large numbers. One or two sunfish about already, harbour porpoises in small numbers and lots of puffins over the past week. We sighted our first humpback in weeks today and promptly lost contact with it, which doesn't often happen.
A clip shared here of the basking shark activity from the the last couple of days
Lots of settled weather has kept us busy at sea over the last couple of weeks in search of wildlife. We are seeing multiple minke whales on all trips and common dolphins in abundance with them, as is the norm for this time of year. We've had no further humpback activity as yet, since our encounter with HBIRL 82 on April 21st and it's high season for them at this time of year.
With basking sharks in swarms off the west coast over the last 2 months there has been mysteriously close to none of them showing along the south coast until this weekend. On our trip on Saturday we had a dozen or more feeding under the cliffs around the eastern side of Toe Head, which has always been a hot-spot for these fascinating fish. A short clip of them shown here and so close to the land you can hear wrens singing in the background !
We were delighted to see our first humpback of the season today in company with several minke whales and scattered common dolphins in small groups all in the same area, with a small number of harbour porpoises on the way out. No feeding action on the surface today with all the whales feeding 30 to 40 metres below on shoals of lesser sand eels and all in sunshine and a calm Atlantic, for a change.
A short clip of today's humpback shown here, fluking before diving for unusually long periods, 16 minutes on one dive, almost twice as long as normal, undoubtedly lunge feeding deep in the water column. Our colleagues at IWDG tell us that this is #HBIRL82 who spent almost all of May 2023 in the Tragumna Bay area. This latest sighting brings to 35 the number of confirmed sightings of this individual on 7 years since IWDG first documented it off Valentia Isl. Co. Kerry in Oct 2015. Like so many other humpbacks that visit our shores, he/she is a creature of habit, showing incredible site fidelity to this area.
At last we are seeing signs of some settled weather later this week with high pressure predicted to develop over Ireland from Thursday until Tuesday next week with light winds, sunshine and very little swell, absolutely ideal weather for locating and watching cetaceans.
We intend to run trips from Thursday onwards and have spaces available on most days.
From experience over the last few years late April is a good time of year for multiple minke whales, lots of common dolphins and the first humpbacks of the season.
A very short clip shown here of an early season humpback giving a tail lobbing demonstration, just the sort of thing we'll be looking for.
Unsettled Atlantic weather continue to play havoc with our attempts to get out whale watching for another week, with high swell and rough seas as prevailing conditions. Yesterday we had storm Kathleen passing through and West Cork waters were positively violent as a result. The last time it was so rough here was the effects of Hurricane Ophelia making landfall in 2017.
A short clip shown here of Toe Head and the Stags getting a battering at the height of the storm. The rocky point in the foreground at the start of this clip is a bit over 30 metres above sea level to give a sense of scale to the awesome size of the waves rolling in.
Yesterday, after months of inactivity with the Holly Jo tied to the mooring, we finally got a break in the incessant low pressure weather systems and went out looking for wildlife. Our efforts were rewarded when we came on a patch of activity with 6 or 7 minke whales in company with about 60 common dolphins, all taking interest in a shoal of bait fish that was 40 to 50 metres below the surface. No feeding action on the surface so we had to be content with glimpses of the whales surfacing for air every 7 or 8 minutes in between their underwater feeding bouts.
We are seeing very little opportunity of getting out again in the next couple of weeks based on weather predictions for the next 14 days, with lots of rainy windy conditions heading this way and all the while a high Atlantic swell keeping a rough sea going.
Share here is a short clip of yesterday's action with bow riding common dolphins and a minke whale taking a few breaths of air.
2023 was not a good year for whale watching for 2 reasons. First of all, the jet stream sat continuously on top of Ireland all through the summer and autumn, bringing a nonstop flow of low pressure weather systems with wind and rain aplenty and high Atlantic swells. Good whale watching rarely occurs in rough seas. From July to October we cancelled more trips than we carried out, due to bad weather conditions.
The 2nd reason it was not a good year is the fact that sprat shoals were scarcer than any year before because of the continuing overfishing of them, carried out by a small number of large Irish mid-water trawlers. After 23 years of whale watching it is easy to say with great certainty that sprats are the favoured prey of all the whales and dolphins in Irish waters. Sprats are being fished to extinction by unregulated trawling of them whenever they attempt to spawn, and likely to continue with no change in fisheries policy for 2024.
With our patch of the Atlantic currently devoid of any sprats or cetaceans we have given up running any winter trips and will start our 2024 season in late March or early April, when the spring weather brings shoals of sandeels to West Cork waters that attracts the attention of hungry whales and dolphins looking for food.
As we have done for the last few years we share here a clip of highlights from 2023 and hope for a better season in 2024.
We are sad to say that we have finished our whale watch season for 2023, somewhat earlier than any previous year, for the simple reason that we have no whales to watch. Over the past week we carried out long searches of all the favoured areas, in idyllic spotting conditions and found the sea to be absolutely barren of any life at all, not even bird life. nothing at all remaining in our patch of the Atlantic. There is a simple reason for this situation, there are no sprat shoals anywhere for whales to feed on in West Cork waters as there always was. Sprats have been overfished to the point of extinction by the large Irish pelagic trawlers that target the shoals as they assemble to spawn. It's the most ill advised, unsustainable and destructive fishery of all time. This fishery has gone on for decades now, unregulated, no quota system, no conservation measures of any kind, to the inevitable conclusion of where we are now, they are gone, not a shoal anywhere. It is utter madness that this fishery has been allowed to continue for so long. The herring stocks indigenous to West Cork was already fished to extinction in the 1990's in exactly the same way.
Sprats are prolific little fish and wonderfully adapted to spend all of their lives in the upper layers of the ocean, in large shoals, hidden in plain sight of all their predators, feeding exclusively on the rich blooms of zooplankton to be found in this area. From tiny larva to full adult size, they are preyed upon by almost every species of fish in the north east Atlantic as well as all seabirds, whales and dolphins. In this way they are the very life blood of a healthy oceanic food chain. Fishing them to extinction is all part of the dreadful abuse of the ocean carried out by human greed, and pathetic fishery management.
The clip shown here is a compilation of late season whale watching highlights from the last couple of years, showing what happens when whales and sprats meet up. Lunge feedin
Over the past 23 years of running whale and dolphin watching trips, October and November were always our best time of year for large whale activity in West Cork waters. It is in this period when sprats assemble into large dense shoals close to the land mass to carry out their spawning activity. All the whales and dolphins take full advantage of the shoaling sprats and come inshore to feed on them at every opportunity. Without any doubt, sprats are the favourite prey of all the animals in our patch of the Atlantic.
This season the weather has been a disaster for whale watching with constant wind, rain and high swell keeping us out of action. On the rare days when the wind has dropped and the sun is shining, there has been a continuous high swell, typically 3 or 4 metres high, that makes very poor conditions for finding and watching animals at sea. We cancel our trips when the swell is higher than 2 metres.
A high swell has two negative effects, the first is it makes it very difficult to spot animals breaking the surface and eclipses your view of them ,even at close quarters. The second is it becomes very uncomfortable over 2 metres and triggers sea sickness. Up to 2 metres most people are fine, when it reaches 3 metres anyone prone to travel sickness will get ill and a whale watch trip becomes a miserable experience if you are seasick.
Finally, for the first time in this month there is a short break in the jet stream and tomorrow looks like an excellent day for whale watching so we are running a trip at 12:00 and still have a few spaces still available. Wednesday and Thursday also looking like possibilities with the high swell gone down, no rain and not too much wind either.
The clip shown here is the high swell of yesterday beating into Toe Head and a very rough sea, totally unsuitable for messing about in boats !
For more than 6 weeks now our whale watching exploits have been seriously curtailed by the jet stream blowing continuously across this part of the world, bringing a never ending stream of low pressure systems with the occasional named storm like Agnes and Babet thrown in for good measure. This has kept the sea in a rough, angry and swelly state nearly all the time, making whale watching trips an impossible task in such conditions, with the vast majority of trips cancelled to unsuitable weather. The next 2 weeks are showing no improvement either with loads more wind and rain approaching from the Atlantic weather machine.
On the rare days we have been out, sightings have included fin whales, minke whales, common dolphins, bluefin tuna, harbour porpoises and grey seals.
The past 6 weeks is the time of year that grey seals choose to give birth to their pups and we have seen new born pups on all tours since early in September. They are hidden away in inaccessible coves, caves and islands all around the coast of Ireland at this time of year. Almost every species of animal in north west Europe give birth to their young in the spring. Grey seals are a real oddity that they choose to do it so late in the year. For the first 9 or 10 days they are vulnerable, helpless creatures and spend all their time laying quietly on the beach waiting for their mum to come ashore and suckle on super rich milk that she provides, growing rapidly in the process. At about 20 days old they are abandoned by mother when her milk runs dry, after that they have to learn to fish and survive on their own, with no further parental attention.
The clip shown here is a grey seal pup about 2 days old, blissfully unaware it's being filmed, patiently awaiting it's mother's return and it's next feed of milk.
Plenty of wildlife to watch off West Cork over the past week with loads of common dolphins, minke whales in increasing numbers, one or two fin whales and a lot of bluefin tuna about.
The clip shared here opens on a feeding frenzy of bluefin tuna, they are huge fish, generally from 150 to 300 kilo in weight and the most valuable fish on the planet, highly prized by the Japanese and sold for colossal prices in their fish markets. Two fin whales follow, searching for sprat shoals to devour and a fin whale lunge feeding on sprats. Last of all are our ever-present common dolphins, always delighted to travel along with the boat at every opportunity.
We have a group cancelled for this Tuesday 29th, so now have spaces available for that trip. Over the past week we have been watching common dolphins, minke whales, fin whales on all trips and yesterday a humpback showed up and entertained us bubble netting for quite a while. There is currently an astonishing amount of oceanic birdlife at sea with manx, sooty, great and Cory's shearwaters about in huge numbers, all joining in with the feeding activity of the whales and dolphins We also have bluefin tuna back again in West Cork waters, crashing about and feeding in company with all the cetaceans and birds. There is certainly plenty to see at sea. My phone has been out of action for the last few days and still not fixed. Anyone wanting to book a trip on Tuesday can message us on Facebook or email us at info@corkwhalewatch.
Shared here is a short clip of yesterday's humpback encounter.
We cancelled so many trips in July due to poor weather, it became depressing. It was the worst July since we started whale watching in 2001. So far August is no better, worse if anything, with the jet stream predicted to continue sweeping overhead for the rest of the month, keeping us in a never ending stream of low pressure systems with wind, rain at times and a high Atlantic swell, very poor conditions for locating and watching marine mammals.
Wednesday 16th was a pleasant break in the weather pattern, a perfect day, flat calm with clear air, blazing sunshine and no swell.
West Cork waters once again proved their worth and sightings for the day included 6 fin whales cruising around amongst 9 or 10 minke whales and several small groups of common dolphins.
There was very little surface feeding action to watch and the fin whales were lunge feeding well below the surface so we had to be content watching them surfacing for air every 10 minutes or so.
The clip shared here features 4 fin whales taking air for their next dive with a small number of common dolphins keeping company with them.
On the rare days when the Atlantic has settled down enough to allow us out looking for wildlife, we have not been disappointed with plenty of animals plenty to watch in West Cork waters.
Our trip on Friday featured hundreds of common dolphins, 4 minke whales, 3 fin whales and a few harbour porpoises at the finish. A rare moment occurred during the day when a fin whale lifted it's tail clean out of the water whilst lunge feeding. In 22 years of whale watching I have the fluke of a fin whale in the air just a handful of times, it's a part of their anatomy that you never get to see, unlike humpbacks, fin whales are not famous for fluking.
The jet stream continues to keep us in low pressure weather systems, with wind, rain and high swell as the dominant features leading to a lot of trips cancelled due to poor conditions.
Whale sightings have been scarce over the past couple of weeks, with minke whales in small numbers but at least the common dolphins are always about the place to keep us entertained.
Highlight of the past week was a nice encounter with an adult female fin whale with her large juvenile offspring just cruising through West Cork waters searching for prey. A short clip of them shared here.
