Daily Blog 24 March 2018

Guide Summary and Photographs

A very overcast day at sea filled with wonderful sightings of some of the wildlife our ecosystem had to offer. Our first sighting came in the form of two endangered African Penguins just outside the harbour. Amazingly, they weren’t scared of our vessel and stayed around us for quite some time before eventually swimming off. Our next sightings were off a large group of Giant Petrels. These are one of among some largest seabirds and are often seen scavenging on floating carcases. We have two species of Giant Petrels in the Dyer Island system, the Southern, that can be identified by a greenish tip to the bill, and the Northern, with a reddish bill. As we entered Sponge Bay at Dyer Island we were able to point out quite a few African Penguins which was very lucky as we usually struggle.

A quick stop at our ever-entertaining seal colony, we journeyed out behind the Island in search of the largest mammals on the planet, Whales. The waters behind the island quickly turned into a birders paradise. We came across hundreds of Cape Gannets, Sooty Shearwaters, and even a Corey’s Shearwater. Our skipper decided to follow the birds towards danger point where one of our guides spotted the spout of Bryde’s Whale in the distance. These whales are usually very uncooperative and move very quickly around the boat in all directions. This one was slight cooperative as it surfaced a few times for us, but very sporadically. This was to be our last sighting of the day, wrapping up an excellent adventure.

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