There has been a lot of dolphin activity reported to the IWDG in the past 72 hours, from inshore waters along the East coast. On validation of these sightings, it is clear that these are bottlenose dolphins.
On the July 12th Louise McAlavey of EHS & IWDG reported a pod of c10 bottlenose dolphins from Whitehead Car Park heading in towards Belfast Lough, while presumably the same group were reported off Bangor the following day, Wed 13th at 19:00 by David Jones.
While Dublin has had it’s fair share of bottlenose activity with sightings from Colin Murray, Portmarnock SAC, of a large pod of c20-40 bottlenose dolphins just east of Portmarnock. Other observers saw them between Howth Head and Ireland’s Eye the same evening. While on 14th July a small group of c2 bottlenose were observed off Shankill, South Dublin.
A species profile on all Irish cetacean species is available on our website, see icon on front page, should you wish to learn more about this species, or help you confirm what you saw.
The activity isn’t limited to dolphins as on Mon. 11th, Brad Robson of IWDG & RSPB observed 2-3 minke whales from a land watch off Skerries in the area north of Rockabill.
So for those of you living along the east coast, we hope you make the most of this opportunity to observe some wonderful marine wildlife. As ever, we’d ask you to report all sightings using our websites on-line sighting form in the sightings section.
Pádraig Whooley