A regular sighting on our wildlife tours is the porpoise, or specifically the harbour porpoise, the smallest cetacean in British waters. As its name implies, the harbour porpoise stays close to the coast or even river estuaries rather than heading out to deep open waters. As such we see often see them on our voyages around the Inner Hebrides.
Porpoise usually travel alone but when there is lots of foodabout you can see up to 20
The porpoise is the smaller cousin to the dolphin, as they are both cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoise are all cetaceans). Not only is the porpoise smaller than our native dolphin species, being only a metre and a half long on average (that’s just 5 foot!), but it is much more timid. Porpoise don’t like the sound of boats and engines so, upon spotting one, our skippers put the boat into neutral as not to spook them. This means we can drift and bob around whilst the porpoise feed around the boat.
Harbour Porpoises have much flatter noses compared to the classic beak of a dolphin.
When out on our tours, look out for a dark, almost-black rolling body in the water with a wee triangular fin on top. If the boat is close enough you can often hear them, make a sneezing sound when coming to the surface- which lends to their rather unflattering nickname “puffing pig”.
Harbour porpoise are here all year round, so you can see them come rain or shine on our tours. Despite looking like small dolphins, dolphins and porpoises do not get on! Dolphins have been seen biting their little cousins by the tail and hurling them out of the water!