Phil Johnston of the Hebridean Bottlenose Dolphin Project reports a new solitary bottlenose dolphin around Port Ellen, Isle of Islay. This fine location is not in Ireland, admittedly - but it's on the south-western corner of the Inner Hebrides, Scotland - an hour's swim for a fast dolphin from Rathlin Island and two from Malin Head!
Phil writes:
The dolphin, duly named Tonic by a local fisherman's daughter, was first seen mid March and has become a fairly regular sight. Tonic has light markings but does not match any animals in our existing catalogue of Hebridean bottlenose dolphins or, that I am aware of, any roaming individuals. Tonic is adult, appears healthy but gender remains unknown - being a little more inhibited than certain other lone dolphins.
Tonic is being monitored by the team here in Port Ellen mostly from land-based watches. Photo-ID shots have been taken and acoustic recordings have also been obtained from the HWDT yacht 'Silurian' .
Tonic's behaviour appears to mostly consist of foraging, with occasional 'lolling' belly-up at the surface and bouts of harassing black guillemots. Short stints of bowriding are common and escorting a charity rowing team for a full four hours cemented Tonic's popularity locally. For how long Tonic continues to hang about remains to be seen of course. For now though, it's a pleasure to be dolphin-watching from the comfort of my own home!
We also had a report this week of a solo dolphin hanging out with surfers at Strandhill, Galway, this week, but haven't been able to confirm this. Please contact us if you can tell us any more. This could be Sandy from Inisheer or it could be a new dolphin.
PS 12th August. The Strandhill sighting is now discounted in the absence of any subsequent reports. "Tonic",however, having disappeared for a few weeks immediately following the above report, is now back on station around the isle of Islay.
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