Another experience well worth an entry. Dive bombing Cormorrants Guillimots and/or Razorbills off the North Wall of Rathlin. This is a more familiar one, happening most dives around this site. On the safety stop the dive on the bubbles, mistaking them for fish activity. They get down to 10 metres and more and spend quite a while whizzing around, very gracefully. So for all you ‘land lubbers’ who wonder what the birds do when they dive into the water and then don’t come up again for ages. Heres the answer. There is also a wee video here.
Another thing just occured to me, the bird you see come up isn’t always the one you watched go down. It is like gridlock underwater!
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![Petit-duc maculé (Forme rousse) / Eastern Screech Owl (Rufous Morph) [Megascops asio]](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7822/47188838411_83c3ec395b_s.jpg "Petit-duc maculé (Forme rousse) / Eastern Screech Owl (Rufous Morph) [Megascops asio]")
Amazing, cool video, they are like minnows and yet they fly, thanks!
Thanks! I see you are into caving. Have a look at my youtube video of Dos Ojos Cenote, or just google it. It is unbelievable. Everything you see when you go caving but underwater!
Great video. I have always wanted to take a photo of a diving bird, especially a Gannet. Perhaps they were going for your bubbles. I dive mainly around Cork and Kerry. Maybe I ought to take the long road north to Rathlin.
Check out our less spectacular offering, the Cork Sub Aqua blog http://corksac.wordpress.com/
Hi Dave
I’m pretty sure the birds were Guillemots, but I see from my post I wrote Coromorants! Don’t know what I was thinking. But you could be right they might be Gannets.There is a bif gannet population out by Skellig Rock, which you should dive if you haven’t already, you would be likely to see some diving birds there.
I would recommend coming up to Rathlin, maybe your club could organise a trip. Try Aquaholics for the diving and they offer accomodation packages too. Good value , convenient to the harbour in Ballycastle. usually the conditions are superb in September with up to 40m viz around Rathlin, however it has been stormy for the past 2 weeks and the sea conditions are far from optimum. Hopefully it will clear out soon.