Early the next morning I went up on deck but saw very little other than a few Gannets. After breakfast we returned up to the Helicopter deck and found we had missed a few Storm Petrels and Bonxies. The next few hours were rather quiet as we began to pass over the Continental Shelf, though we did see the ocasional Balearic and Sooty Shearwaters and a few Bottle-nosed Dolphins. Shortly afterwards we began to encounter a few Great Shearwaters, a presumed Grey Phalarope followed shortly afterwards by the first Fin Whales. Fin Whale is the second largest animal on the planet and it is apparently very unusual for them to be seen over the Continental Shelf. Suddenly we began to pick up much larger mixed flocks of Shearwaters, often associating with pods of Common Dolphins, mainly Great at first but as we steamed south Cory's gradually became more and more common. Other birds included Sabine's and Little Gulls, Storm Petrel and a few Skuas. Often a few passerines land on board, though this year we only saw a female Blackcap a few White/Pied Wagtails, a few Hirundines and one or two other unidentified Warblers. We did see two Sparrowhawks well out into the bay, which were very unusual. It remained quite productive up until we went down below deck just before dusk.
The next morning we docked at Santurzi at 08.00hrs and shortly afterwards we caught a taxi up the hillside behind the port. This was very good and good numbers of migrants were present. Tree Pipits were very common as were Pied Flycatchers. We also saw three Wrynecks about seven Red-backed Shrikes, a Booted Eagle, a Subalpine Warbler at least four Black Redstart, Serins and good numbers of Griffon Vultures among other things.
On the last day thick fog hampered viewing for much of the early morning and though it brightened up later it was fairly quiet with just a few Bonxies and a few commoner seabirds as we approached Portsmouth, though a juvenile Mediterranean Gull was present in Portsmouth Harbour.
All in all we had an excellent trip with rough totals of around 800 large Shearwaters, c70 Fin Whale, c800 Common Dolphin, 35 Bottle-nosed Dolphin and 3 Cuvier's Beaked Whales. As is usual on such trips as well as the above sightings there were also several sightings of unidentified cetaceans such as probable sightings of Sowerby's Beaked Whale, probale Sperm Whale and a probable Minke Whale in the English Channel. This was my second trip on the Pride of Bilbao and I can certainly recommend it to anyone who has not yet been, you never know what you will see. In 2003 I was lucky enough to see a True's Beaked Whale, one of the few live sightings ever, anywhere in the world, of this species.