We’ve just come out of World Ocean month of Septemberwhen organisations, with the public’s help, have carried outmany citizen science activities such as beach cleans and source to sea surveys etc. These are all important as the data is collated by the Marine conservation society and used to lobby the government to help improve the state of our oceans.

Another voluntary science activity involves training and working with Orca UK to survey our oceans and seas for marine mammal and bird activity.

I had the privilege recently to volunteer on the Coll, Tiree and Colonsay route as part of an Orca survey team. We are lucky to be granted permission to carry out our surveys from the bridge of the Caledonian MacBrayne ferries. The view is magnificent and even luckier the weather was perfect.

We headed out on MV Clansman at 7am and didn’t return from Colonsay until 2130 hrs so it was a long day howeverthe time passed quickly and we were treated to some trulyspectacular sightings.

Working as a team of four we surveyed our areas port and starboard with someone on paperwork logging what we saw at what time and position etc.

Our sightings included minke whales, harbour porpoise, common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins , basking sharks to name a few. One of the sightings of common dolphins saw them play alongside the ship’s hull, gently and slowly so we got a text book view of them. Every time the shout for sighting was called there was an excitement even amongst the crew.

It was a spectacular day which was topped off by a chance sighting from the passenger decks of a pod of bottlenose dolphins surfing and playing alongside the Clansman as we headed back to Oban in the dark. We had obviously finished our survey as it was dark so that was a bonus.

It is such a privilege to be able to take part in these surveys and just shows what a wonderful country we live in with fabulous scenery and wildlife.

Connie 🐳🐋🐬🌊