Incredible bluefin tuna, Peterburn

The last day of the holiday and there was nowhere else to be but back at Peterburn for the one final scan of the sea. It was good viewing conditions, quite calm but just breezy enough to keep the midges away, and although Skye and Harris were not as clear as they had been at the start of the holiday, I could still clearly make out their outlines.

To the north west through the binoculars I could see a lot of splashes and sure enough when I turned the scope onto them  I could see the acrobatic leaps of common dolphins. It was slightly odd though because there were a lot of splashes with no dolphins emerging, but they were over a mile away so I just assumed that it was dolphin activity and forgot about them and started to scan the rest of the sea through the scope, as always on the look out for large whales.

Almost immediately I saw a dolphin breaching at quite close range (1km?) and it was unmistakeably a Risso's dolphin, with a largely pale grey body, covered in scratches and no beak. One of the best views I've ever had of the species, because this is the first time I've seen the whole animal. Soon I saw that it was with at least another three animals, which included a calf, presumably the same one I saw with its mother yesterday. Brilliant, if I saw nothing else it would have been a good morning. 

I continued scanning. More splashes to the north west, but this time no obvious sign of dolphins. I continued scanning. Suddenly at much closer range I saw something that obviously wasn't a dolphin, the shape of the tail was completely wrong. I just managed to capture it as it disappeared back into the water. Straight away I suspected that it was a tuna because three had been reported from Tiumpan head the previous day, but I'd never seen one before so didn't know much about their behaviour or even their size. It was a breathtaking moment, one of the highlights of the holiday.

On returning to he caravan I did a bit of research into bluefin tuna, it turns out they can grow up to 2 - 2.25m in length, 0.5m larger than common dolphins, and frequently leap out of the water like dolphins. Not only that, somebody mentioned on a Facebook group that he had seen them in previous years feeding with common dolphins off Mull and he described a lot of splashes that weren't dolphins. I wish I'd known all of this beforehand, I'd have paid more attention to the splashes that I saw, and I'm even beginning to wonder if some of the leaping "dolphins" were in fact tuna. I've seen hundreds of common dolphins on this holiday, did I just assume that's what they all were and miss the fact that some were actually huge fish?! Whatever the truth of that, it wouldn't surprise me if the unusual splashes were tuna and the animal I saw at close range was obviously a tuna. What a surreal experience, it was like coming face to face with an alien!

I've now had a few sightings of Risso's dolphins, most in North West Scotland, but also at Strumble Head in South Wales which in fact were my first. My closest sighting was a pod off Tiumpan Head last year which were really quite close, but they were very much over shadowed by three fin and two humpback whales.

Also today a single minke whale, whilst birds included 22 great northern divers.

We called in again this evening for a look at the sunset, but I didn't even have binoculars with me.

So it's the end of another fabulous holiday to north west Scotland. As always at this time of year I came looking for cetaceans and wasn't disappointed. I found my own fin whale and had 42 sightings of at least 20 different minke whales. I had new experiences such as breaching minke whale and Risso's dolphins, and I even answered my own question, do minke whales blow, to which the answer is a resounding YES, and bluefin tuna was the icing on the cake. We had great weather and did plenty of walks, including Stac Pollaidh and Beinn Eighe.