Friday, June 24, 2022

There was always the risk that a trip on the ferry during the current devastating outbreak of avian flu would be a voyage through a seabird graveyard - but the first dead creature we saw was a sheep.


Two fishing boats each had one great skua in attendance along with gulls, and out in the Minch, sightings of guillemots and puffins were reassuringly plentiful, although we spotted only one razorbill. Another bonxie went flying across the wake of the ferry and while I snapped off a useless shot I caught sight of another skua, heading in the other direction; I suspected this was an Arctic skua, but the glare off the sea on that side of the boat made watching anything against the water difficult and snapping it almost impossible (it's not always easy to see your subject through the electronic viewfinder of a bridge camera, while milky conditions make it hard to focus). I managed just one halfway decent shot by zooming out when the bird was against the sky.



I last saw the skua harassing what might have been a kittiwake before losing sight of both.

I was very focused today, scanning the sea frequently until my arms ached from holding up the bins. I've fallen in love with shearwaters and was determined to see at least one. Well, that's exactly what I saw - one Manx shearwater!



Someone pointed out a pod of dolphins, and a bit later we saw a few more; we also had a couple of sightings of porpoises. At Stornoway we had good views of common terns in the harbour; and on the return trip we saw kittiwakes and a couple of fulmars. We passed one dead seabird, the greyish webbed foot perhaps suggesting gannet (we also saw several live gannets, thank goodness).


The wind got up in the afternoon and the sea was quite choppy; we failed to see any more shearwaters, Arctic skuas or cetaceans. Arriving back in Ullapool, we stayed on deck until the last moment as this was preferable to crowding round the exit below in a confined space with loads of other people (Covid hasn't gone away) and I had just packed the camera into my rucksack when a racket from above made me look up - to see a white-tailed eagle being mobbed by several herring gulls.






The eagle, which appeared to have a bulging crop, executed a raven-like roll in its efforts to escape its attackers and eventually flew off over the loch - having provided a memorable ending to what had been an enjoyable but slightly disappointing voyage.

// posted by Christine @ 11:37 AM
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