Our most popular visitor here at Easdale has to be the dolphins! With inquisitive minds and playful natures, the dolphins swim along with our boats, close enough to make eye contact!
Bottlenose dolphins are a special visitor here at Easdale
Our most common dolphin sightings are of bottlenose dolphins, the largest dolphin species we find here, the males can be 4 metres long! This particular pod of bottlenose dolphins can be seen at any time of year, but they have a huge territory around the Inner Hebrides, stretching from Skye to Kintyre. This means they can be anywhere in the Inner Hebrides and so it is truly special when we see them on our tours, normally once a month or so!
Bottlenose dolphins live in families, or pods, our pod has around 40 dolphins in.
In the summer months we also see common dolphins! These are smaller but equally playful animals with a beautiful creamy-yellow pattern. For most of the year the common dolphins are far out in the Atlantic but come further inland in the summer when food is abundant. Normally we see them in pods of 20 or so, but occasionally we see super pods hundreds strong- a real sight to behold!
Common dolphins are summer visitors at Easdale.
Rarer still are Risso’s and Atlantic White-Sided dolphins who, like the bottlenose, can pop up at any time of year although tend to swim in deeper waters where their favourite food is, squid!