27th of May – 16th of June

On the 31st of May, Andy joined the team as the new boat driver, and we had the chance to go out and do a survey with both Andy and Ruadhan and show Andy the ropes. Unfortunately, on the first survey day we did not see any dolphins despite spending hours on the water and covering a vast area all the way from Cleggan Bay to Mannin Bay to Inishbofin and finally to Ballynakill Bay. What we did see, however, was plenty of seabirds including kittiwakes, cormorants, black guillemots and guillemots, gannets and lesser black back gulls. It was still an enjoyable and sunny day to be on the water despite the lack of dolphins, so nobody felt too disheartened about it.

A cormorant on the flight

On the 2nd of June we launched our RIB from Killary harbour and started heading north towards Clew Bay. Less than half an hour of driving, I saw two fins in the water heading towards our boat. It turned out to be a group of 12-15 bottlenose dolphins including two calves. One of the calves still had foetal folds around its body so it could not have been more than six months old. So cute!

Photo by Andy Foote

Some of the dolphins were heading into Killary fjord and we followed them there taking photo-ID pictures during the encounter. Once in the fjord, the dolphins seemed to be engaged in foraging and we observed them doing rapid surfacings (chasing fish?). After spending for about 1.5 hours with the dolphins, we decided to leave them as they started to head out from the fjord. In total, we took more than 750 photos of the dolphins that needed to be processed and matched with our existing photos and the UCC catalogue! All in all, what a great day we had, I was especially happy for Ruadhan that he got to see the dolphins once more before finishing his contract!

Andy and I had one more successful survey on the 4th of June, when we launched again from the Killary Cruises' slipway, and we did not have to wait for long until we saw a group of five dolphins possibly foraging in the mouth of the fjord. Sadly the sea outside the fjord was a bit too “white-cappy” which makes sighting the dolphins more difficult, so in the end we lost them already after 25 minutes. I managed to take some pictures though, and later noticed that one of the dolphins was the same one we had seen with Ruadhan on the 25th of May. This dolphin has very distinctive markings on its dorsal fin (see picture below) which makes the identification very easy.

Dolphin on the right photographed on the 25th of May and again on the 2nd of June. Photo by Milaja Nykanen. 

It looked like the weather was going to stay gorgeous during the whole week, and on the 5th of June we received lots of bottlenose dolphin sighting reports in Clifden Bay from the local people. Unfortunately the tide was too low for us to launch the boat from Cleggan or Clifden so we decided to drive to Sky Road by car and see if we could take pictures from land. We saw a group of up to 20 animals swimming outward from Clifden Bay and took some distant pictures that later turned out to be too far away to make any definitive identifications.

On the 6th of June, we launched again from Killary and headed out from the fjord with the intension of heading south towards Mannin Bay to see if the dolphins were still in the area. Near the mouth of Little Killary Andy saw a splash in the distance, and it turned out to be a group of about ten bottlenose dolphins. We stayed with the group taking pictures as they were moving towards the fjord. We saw another group of about ten dolphins near Inishdegil, and it seemed as the two groups were coming together. We stayed with the animals for almost 1.5 hours and saw three juveniles bow riding and four little calves swimming with their mothers as well as witnessed some jumps and leaps. After the encounter we left the dolphins and headed south hoping to see more dolphins. About a half nautical mile off the mouth of Ballynakill Bay we saw something in the water that turned out to be a single Minke whale!

We did not see any more dolphins in Clifden/Mannin Bay but we were very happy to have seen dolphins and of course the Minke!

Minke whale off Ballynakill Bay. Photo by Milaja Nykanen.

The past week has been quiet with windier weather and sadly without any dolphin encounters; instead our time has been spent tracking down some parts for the trailer and going through photos from previous encounters. We are hoping for better weather and some dolphins soon!

Milaja