Whales August 2026

10 Aug

Written By me 2

August is the peak season for Whales in the Bay of Biscay with migrating Fins a highlight :)

A big Fin Whale blowing, backlit by the setting sun, Bay of Biscay Thursday 6th August 2026.

A Grey Seal chillin' on the Breakwater as we left Plymouth

Two Swans live in Plymouth Harbour. Apparently Swans can build a nest from things like Seaweed!

It's peak Tuna season and we saw a few boils like this, Tuna Dolphins and Seabirds all joining in feeding on things like Garfish and Sardines.

You can see the Fins and Spikey tail on this pic.

A lot of Shearwaters were about through this trip. Here's a Great Shearwater in the English Channel.

Surfin' great shearwater. They fly close to the waves.

Getting a bit choppy on the Wednesday in the English Channel. Looks like Beaufort 5 - chance of spray! Sea state 4 - moderate, 1.25 to 2.5M waves.

As we got towards France we started to see the bigger Cory's Shearwaters with their Yellow beaks.

Like a mini Albatross :) They are in the same big family - the Tubenoses.

A Cory nearest and a Great Shearwater handily flying together for us to compare them.

Sunset around Brittany.

Sunrise in the Bay of Biscay Thursday 6th August

Around 7.30am we met some Fin Whales - its peak season for them here.

The blows are more varied than you'd think - here's a bushy sort of one. Not clear if this is young Fin, different type of Fin blow or different type of Whale.

This is very Fin Whale :)

One....

Two....

Three! Could be three Whales or two and one has blown twice. They blow every minute or so travelling and more often when feeding.

Handy ship on horizon gives a good marker as these Whales are a kilometre or so off.

Small bird joins us briefly in the middle of the Bay. Consensus is it was a Willow Warbler - a very yellow one. Small birds can fly further out than many people think!

We met a mixed pod of Striped and Common Dolphins briefly - it was overcast and rainy which may have contributed to them not being as acrobatic as we sometimes see.

Gangway broken again at Santander so I stayed onboard. Here's a Sparrow Husband and wife, part of the bird clean up crew for dropped crumbs, crisps, bits of cheese or whatever :)

One of the Black Kites at Santander

It had some Pigeon wings it was munching on. It looked very like how Peregrines leave them. It may have nicked them from local Peregrines.

You can just see the Peregrines on top of the building left here. One dive bombed the Kite a few times and it lost the Pigeon wings.

After leaving Santander we picked up a pod of Striped Dolphins in the glare once the Sun came out.

Feeling more acrobatic :)

Here's a Cuvier's Beaked Whale surfacing. There were at least two but I only saw the other one under the water.

Don't often get to see much of its actual beak this is aas close as I've come to getting that :)

A bit later wwe picked up anothere Pod of Fin whales, this one came quite close to blow - you can see a fin and a bit of body there in the water

Here's a Fin travelling close to the surfacing see its brown err... Fin sticking up :)

We got some Sundogs - partial Rainbows at 22 degrees from the sun caused by high up Ice Crystals in the air.

And more Fin blows including the Video above as the Sun set.

Here's a still cut from the video :) You can see the dark body of the Whale under the blow.

%am Finisterre, Brittany. I love the lighhouses before dawn as they shine over the sea.

We picked up the Gannets again even before sunup at Finisterre

This young Gannet came for a look at the ship for a while

There were many feeding Dolphins and Tuna between Finisterre and Plymouth, looking out for the clouds ofd seabirds was one good tactic to spot them.

Around 7.30 some Common Dolphins came up to check out the ship - beautifully backlit too :)

A common Dolphin in a sparkling sea - English Channel

As we got towards Plymouth the sea calmed right down to the point we could see reflections like the one of this Gannet.

Here's a Fulmar at Plymouth

And a Skua

Sometimes Tuna jump clean out of the sea :)

This Tuna has some striking colour!

THis was a big Tuna boil close to the ship attracting a cloud of gulls. Many passengers up on deck by this time to see the port entry and enjoy the sun and wildlife.