A whole heap of blubber

At the weekend I was on the Pride of Bilbao looking at all sorts of fishy things, although the jourvey out was pretty uneventful with more wee migrants on the boat than whales or dolphins in the water. Seabirds were just as scarce, as it was this time last year. Once at Bilbao (or St Tiruzzi?) the bird geeks amongst us jumped in a taxi upto a nearby hill where we immediately started picking out migrants. First call was 'Melody' from Mr Fat Paul Scholes and it just rolled on from there, a good mix of common/scarce migrants and the resident vultures and eagles didn't disappoint either. This Redstart has the white wing patch of a samamisicus Redstart but Mr Scholes reliably informs me that he has seen 'normal' Redstarts with this wing patch in south France.

The journey back on the ferry was very eventful, firstly with 1500 volcanically stranded tourists hopping on board and then a feast of blubber. During a 5 hour spell we managed to rack up 7 marine mammal species, including some close ups of Fin & Cuvier's beaked Whale and shit views of Sperm and Pilot Whale. Dolphins bounced around everywhere and I managed to get a snap of a partially melanistic Common Dolphin. Although this happens with birds I had never really thought about it occuring in dolphins, my second lesson of the day!!! Amidst all this fishy frenzy a couple of friendly stow aways were highly photogenic. The day was nicely rounded off by a flyby Black Tern. The last day was a lot quieter as we entered the English Channel, however the mirror like seas did allow us to add Harbour Porpoise and Minke to the cet list