A young tuna was swimming along when a submarine passed by. “What’s that dad?” he asked. “ That’s a tin of people” his father replied.
I can’t say I’ve seen a submarine in the Minch for a number of years. We used to see them on the surface from time to time – big menacing looking vessels which despite their size didn’t show up on the radar!
Nor have I seen any tuna myself, though there are many reports of bluefin tuna reappearing in these waters, having become virtually extinct due to overfishing in the 19th century. Indeed there have been a small number of these fish caught and tagged off the west side of the Outer Hebrides over the last ten years, which have been subsequently tracked swimming as far away as the Azores! One of the local creel boats told me he saw several last year beside his boat while fishing on the east side, just a few miles from Kallin harbour, so perhaps we can look forward to spotting one of these huge fish ( they grow to over 600 kgs.) in the near future. That’s the excitement of wildlife cruises – you just never know what’s round the corner!
Unfortunately the opportunities for spotting wildlife offshore have been limited by the weather during August. Indeed after a nice spell of warm dry weather in May it has been all downhill. The last three months have recorded about 50% of the average for sunshine in N W Scotland, and over 200% of the average for rain – and not a week has gone by without strong winds, most often for days on end. But having said that we were still able to run a respectable number of trips, mostly by keeping in the sheltered inshore areas between Eaval and Ronay where there are so many bays and inlets to afford protection from the elements. Luckily it is in these very places that some of our best sightings regularly take place – particularly of eagles, otters and deer and seals.
On the 6th August we had five separate otter sightings in one trip!
On the 14th our resident male sea eagle decided he fancied a change of diet and knocked down a seagull minding its own business next to the boat and proceeded to eat it while we watched on thinking what’s got into you today?
And perhaps most excitingly, on the 31st, , attracted by a gannet feeding frenzy, we found a large pod of common dolphins all around the boat, - let’s hope that is a sign of things to come in September!
Speaking of unusual sightings, Nye recently showed me this remarkable footage that his wife took on a boat trip out of Lochmaddy with his family a few years back, and it was too interesting not to share it with you!
Spotting a small commotion in the water they headed over to find a white tailed sea eagle that had just taken a large (live) fish near the shore and was being pestered by gulls while steadily heading back towards land with its catch.
Eagles can’t take off again once they are in the water and they are usually extremely careful to avoid getting immersed, indeed one of the local fish farm boats told me how they had rescued an eagle which they believed to be drowning. So I am amazed to see this bird swimming purposefully and strongly using what I can only describe as a confident breast stroke!
• With thanks to Rosie for the dolphin photograph, Rebecca Douglas for the red deer emerging from the water, and Cara Forbes for the sea eagle video.
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