The treasured UK celebrity Bill Oddie joined the IFAW/SOTW team in Iceland this week to help with the Meet us don’t Eat us campaign and became part of the Song of the Whale team for a few days. It was great having Bill aboard with his quirky sense of humour and immense naturalist knowledge he definitely added something to the team. The weather and whales of Faxafloi Bay were certainly shown at their best for Bill’s visit. Flat calm seas allowed us to follow and track several whales for around 3 hours each while they carried out belly up feeding lunges, close passes and often erratic surfacings. Laughing Fulmars, tiny phalaropes, colourful puffins, male guillemots and their chicks and even a young turnstone provided excellent bird watching and the huge number of mackerel in the bay at the moment were creating bubbling bait balls on the calm sea surface.
While aboard, Bill was able to experience first hand our purpose built quiet research vessel and understand how it allows us the unique opportunity to gather important new data on the behaviour of a whale species which here in Iceland provides the basis for a successful whale watching industry. Just outside this very bay, the same whales could be killed for their meat, even though little is known about how this will impact the minke’s which live and feed in this bay.
We are pretty sure Bill enjoyed his short stay aboard as his quick summary of the trip was:
“There are few things I am more wary of than going on a boat, but I am cured! Thanks to all the crew on ‘Song of the Whale’, and the calm seas, and the Icelandic sun, and – oh yes- the whales. Bless ’em all. This feels good. Enjoy. Love Bill.”