Sightings
It has seemed like the winter this year was never going to end but we're back out on the water again and delighted to see the seabirds have returned to Troup in great numbers this year - and it seems they arrived back earlier than normal too. Certainly the guillemots were back on the cliffs in March and even the puffins, which don't normally show up in big numbers until about May, have been there since mid April. It looks like there are more black guillemots on the go this spring too.

As for mammals, there were plenty of seal pups spotted over the winter and we regularly see both common and grey seals at Skiddy Craig, near Troup, and in Aberdour Bay. We've seen dolphins from the shore a few times - yet to encounter them from Buchaneer but good to know they're around. Ian spotted the first porpoises for the year in mid-April.

It's an exciting start to the season and we're hopeful that - with the current predictions for a fantastic summer (?) - we'll have plenty of good wildlife encounters - especially with  minke whales. We did see a few of these gentle giants last year, but so far the best whale encounters were in 2006. Other top sightings for the 2009 season were the ocean sunfish and in September Ian discovered some exotic crystal jellyfish hanging out in Aberdour Bay - a species more usually at home in the Pacific ocean and the first time ever recorded in Scotland!

You can see video footage of a basking shark seen in Portsoy in 2008 and an encounter with some show-off bottlenose dolphins by clicking here.

Recent Bird Sightings:

• Gannet (over 1500 pairs last year!)
• Puffin
• Guillemot
• Black guillemot (seemingly more numerous than last year)
• Razorbill
• Shag (in full breeding colours - looking stunning!)
• Cormorant
• Fulmar
• Kittiwake
• Oyster catcher
• Black backed gull
• Eider duck
• Long tailed duck (these shy ducks are winter visitors)

Recent Mammal Sightings:

• We often see common and grey seals- particularly around Troup Head and east of Pennan where they gather together and lie on the rocks. They are very curious and sometimes it's hard to know who's watching who!

• The bottlenose dolphins were not around last year as much as we'd have liked - though when we did see them, we had the most amazing displays of leaping, backflips and somersaults.

• We always keep an eye out for harbour porpoises, usually seen around Gamrie and Pennan Bay and also around Whitehills. These little cetaceans are hard to spot as they surface quickly but they tend to mill around and sometimes we've seen them quite close up to the boat. First seen this year on 18th April.

• Minke whales were seen on many of our summer trips in 2006 - we were lucky enough to see whales on about 40% of our trips in June/July/August. It was amazing to see them scattering birds as they lunged through shoals of fish - and get close enough to smell their fishy breath! In 2007 we only encountered one all year, and the best sightings in 2008 and 09 were in July - mostly in the area of Sandend/Whitehills. We've got our eyes well and truly peeled for the first whale for this year!

Unusual Sightings

• Jellyfish are pretty fascinating and we are used to seeing moon jellyfish and the stingy lion's mane and purple lion's mane jellies - but Ian's discovery of the Crystal jellyfish in Aberdour Bay was very unusual - he had to search the internet to identify it. Ian took a few specimens to Macduff Marine Aquarium where they were included in the jellyfish display there for a while.

• On 24th July 2008, Ian and passengers saw a great skua grab an adult gannet by the throat and fly along with it flapping - evenutally the gannet coughed up its fish!

• We caught a quick glimpse of a great shearwater on 24th June 2008. These majestic seabirds are real ocean travellers and rarely seen close to the shore.

• We had a couple of cracking sightings of ocean sunfish last summer - in Banff Band and just off Greensides - very exciting!  Previously only seen by us once in August 07 (Sat 10th, at More Head), these disc-shaped fish are around 2m long and are the heaviest bony fish in the world! They spend time 'sunbathing' at the surface and we spotted this one waving its fin out of the water.

• Another great wildlife encounter last summer was with a basking shark in Gamrie Bay on Friday 25th August 2007. This huge fish was feeding at the sea surface right by the boat -  it was about 4m long - just a tiddler! Basking sharks get to about 11m! We did see a bigger one a couple of days later - it was close in shore and seemed to follow us into our favourite cove at Head of Garness.

• We had our first ever sighting of an otter from Buchaneer last July, near  Whitehills. Prior to that we had only seen one on Banff Beach the previous year - it was rambling around the rockpools. Our boat trip had been cancelled that day due to high winds and swell - but we still managed to see some great wildlife!!

• One of the most exciting marine mammal sightings we've ever had was on 9th September 2006. We met a group of 12 or so Risso's dolphins, which we had never seen before - we had to hit the reference books when we got back to identify them! They are bigger than the bottlenose dolphins, with a large, quite straight dorsal fin and a rounded head. We were with them from Tarlair to Gamrie Bay and were treated to some fabulous displays of breaching and tail lobbing - what an experience!