It was another busy summer out on the North Sea, searching for whales, dolphins, porpoises and other marine wildlife. It was an incredibly successful season too, with a substantial majority of our sailings encountering cetaceans 🙂 Here’s a selection of images from early July to late September…
We’ve arranged most of our sailings for 2022, and we’ll be making online booking available from early next week
Wednesday’s 4hr pelagic had a forecast that promised rain, although we only had a few drops, and it took just a few minutes for our first cetacean to appear as a harbour porpoise crossed the mouth of the Tyne in front of us. 90 minutes of intense scanning eventually produced bottlenose dolphins off Whitley Bay and they swam alongside us for an hour as we headed slowly south, finally leaving as we passed the mouth of the river again. On a glassy sea we headed beyond the Tyne and with conditions so perfect I spotted fins that were 2nm ahead of us…and then the white-beaked dolphins appeared 🙂
Saturday was our first 10hr pelagic, after August 5th had weather that wasn’t great. White-beaked Dolphin put in an appearance early in the day, a Minke Whale was well to the ENE of Alnmouth and Harbour Porpoise were regular throughout the day. Amongst mist and rain we had some sublime conditions, extraordinary light and incredibly smooth water…
Yesterday’s 4hr evening pelagic was a strange one; a few Guillemots, a Puffin, a Razorbill with juvenile, Fulmars circling, Kittiwakes following us, a Mediterranean Gull that came and inspected us before heading back towards the shore, a Common Seal, a briefly seen fin that was probably a Harbour Porpoise and then line after line of Gannets streaming north towards the Bass Rock after presumably heading well south of the Tyne in search of food…and we weren’t seeing fish on the echo finder anywhere between the Tyne and Newbiggin. The crazy thing about the fluidity of marine wildlife distribution is that we could well go out next Wednesday and be surrounded by dolphins 🙂
Glassy calm sea, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Puffins, Common Scoters, Gannets, a couple of Harbour Porpoises putting in brief appearances…and torrential rain and generally murky conditions all made for a quite atmospheric 4hr evening pelagic 🙂
Yesterday’s 4hr evening pelagic started with a sky that looked certain to deliver an impressive sunset…
With little swell and only a very gentle westerly breeze, the sea was as smooth as we’ve seen it in a while. Puffins and Guillemots were on the water and skittering across the surface as we passed them, Kittiwakes were following us, Gannets soared by, flocks of Common Scoter were rafting then taking off and speckling the steel grey sky to the east and the star of the show was the tiny, undemonstrative Harbour Porpoise. we don’t encounter them very often so finding at least two mother/calf pairs was a real bonus 🙂
As many of our regular readers may already know, I was diagnosed with a rare and progressive illness last year and had surgery at the start of January to alleviate the worst of the symptoms. One of the most frustrating things, as well as having to have a couple of months break from NEWT safaris, has been having to stay onshore and not do any survey work for the North East Cetacean Project. Monday was the first time in months that I’ve felt well enough to consider spending a day at sea so I left the house as a beautiful sunrise was developing and drove to Whitley Bay to collect Andy. We met up with Caroline at Royal Quays and then on to the St Aidan.
Once we were out of the Tyne it was obvious that conditions were as good as we’d thought they’d be. Heading north we had four sightings of Harbour Porpoise, although they were all typically shy, and as were about to have lunch a loud shout of “dolphins” from Andy heralded the arrival of 40-50 Bottlenose Dolphins that stayed around the boat for 45mins 🙂
It’s good to be back 😉
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8140-1024x683.jpg)
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8316-1024x683.jpg)
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8377-1024x683.jpg)
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8390-1024x683.jpg)
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8517-1024x683.jpg)
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8696-1024x683.jpg)
![Bottlenose Dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] off Dunstanburgh, Northumberland 25/02/19](https://www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/20190225-_DSC8782-1024x683.jpg)
Last Wednesday was our second 10hr ‘Northumberland Ultimate pelagic’ for this year and the sea was looking about as calm as we could have hoped for…
Our first White-beaked Dolphins appeared off Blyth but they weren’t in a mood for playing with the boat and were engaged in high speed pursuit of prey. Gannets, Fulmars and Kittiwakes were regular throughout the whole day and then circling flocks of Gannets took us to Minke Whales, more Minke Whales, White-beaked Dolphins, even more Minke Whales, more White-beaked Dolphins, even more White-beaked Dolphins and more Minke Whales before a final group of White-beaked Dolphins and a scattering of Harbour Porpoises as we headed south with a day total of 50+ White-beaked Dolphins and up to 12 Minke Whales 🙂
Yesterday was the first of our 10hr ‘Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic’ sailings for this year and it started well with two Harbour Porpoises at the mouth of the Tyne, then another two a couple of miles further north. As Gannets soared by, Fulmars circled us and Kittiwakes and Lesser Black-backed Gulls tagged along in our wake, two White-beaked Dolphins put in a brief appearance and the swell started to build. By mid-afternoon we’d got heavy rain and then another 5 dolphins spent a couple of minutes bow-riding 🙂
Our August 29th, September 15th and September 22nd 10hr sailings each have two places still available so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place 🙂
With a glassy calm river outside the marina, and a great forecast for the evening (after the rain had passed a couple of hour earlier), we had a dilemma. Allan had seen a group of White-beaked Dolphins in the deep south (or County Durham as its residents call it…) a couple of hours earlier so were we going to change our sailing plan that has served us well for over 20 years and turn right as we passed through the Tyne Piers?
We hadn’t even left the river when a Harbour Porpoise appeared and by then we’d already decided to ‘head south for a bit and turn north if we don’t find anything’. Ten minutes later I was scanning directly ahead and spotted a couple of fins…
All of our 4hr evening pelagics are fully booked now but we’ve still got a few spaces on our groundbreaking Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic sailings on August 29th, September 15th and September 22nd. Those are filling up too, so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place 🙂