West Waterford pelagic trip, 17 August 2011

A boat-trip from Youghal to c5 miles off Ram Head (9 am - 5 pm) produced 2+ Balearic Shearwaters, 4+ Sooty Shearwaters, 4+ Great Skuas, 8+ Storm Petrels, a juvenile Puffin, 500+ feeding Manx Shearwaters & 4+ Common Dolphins, also an adult or subadult Mediterranean Gull closer inshore. Participants were Paul Archer, Mark Carmody, Declan Clarke, Mark Foley, Owen Foley, Andrew Kelly, Andrew Malcolm, Ronan McLoughlin, Gerry Power, John Power, Ann Trimble, Paul Walsh and Daniel Weldon, on the catamaran 'Rebecca C' skippered by Martin Colfer (www.charterangling.ie). Weather and sea-conditions were pretty much perfect, sunny with wind 2-3 E to NE. Unfortunately, despite fairly liberal use of fish 'chum', cod liver oil and DMS (dimethyl sulphide), the scarcer species proved reluctant to come to the boat (though a shark species snapped one of the fishing lines) . In particular, species like Wilson's Petrel, Great/Cory's Shearwater and Sabines Gull failed to make an appearance - next time (August 2012?) maybe...

See below for some photos from the day, and from an earlier boat-trip by Declan Clarke on 2 August. More here (Andrew Kelly).