Mark O'Connor

I'm great, thank you.

Yes, so Donegal Bay, Ireland's biggest bay, is coming to life.

The last few weeks we've had pretty special basking shark encounters.

which have naturally started to dwindle as the sharks have possibly moved on.

But just yesterday, we have had some reports, validated reports and footage of humpback whale activity in the bay.

So there was one humpback whale.

And although there was one also spotted earlier in the week or possibly last week, we had the opportunity to ID this one with Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.

And it's known as humpback whale.

102 which means it's the 102nd humpback to ever be ID'd in Ireland and we've had it in Donegal Bay before and not only is it there it's there and feeding so it's putting on quite the show and seems to be hanging around eating up all the forage fish that are in the area.

Is it easy to spot from the mainland?

Absolutely you certainly don't need to go out in a boat although there are ecotourism type trips going out in the bay from

both Donegal and Sligo side but you just have to get yourself onto your headland with your eyes wide open and ideally with some form of binoculars and you'll see two things you'll see the blow of the animal as it breathes out when it surfaces and you might even see it feeding but one of the things that humpbacks do that other whales don't that we have in the area is they show their tail which is called a fluke and that's unmistakable you can absolutely see that from land

Yeah, almost like a snorkeler or a diver or a swimmer diving underwater.

It lifts its tail and it dives deep.

And what we expect to see when that happens, if there's food in the area, is it might engage in what we call bubble netting.

which is where it swims in a circular kind of oval motion, blowing out bubbles and creating almost like a net with the bubbles rising to the surface.

And you'll see the water almost boiling before a large head with a gulp comes out of the water.

And lots of fish try and jump away, but it takes a massive feed of whatever fish are in the bay at that time.

Why isn't it with a mate or with a few others?

Well, interesting question, because in 2025, most humpback sightings in Donegal Bay had two or more animals in a group.