Humpback whale off Highlands caught on camera
THE old whalers’ cry “thar she blows” is becoming a familiar sound around the Highland coast.
For in recent weeks whales have been making themselves known all over the seas enclosing the Highlands and Islands.
And they are becoming almost as famous an attraction as the schools of dolphins, particularly the Moray Firth bottlenose dolphins, which attract thousands of visitors every year.
The latest cetacean to capture the public imagination was captured on camera by Skye fisherman Brian Wells, who caught some amazing images of a humpback whale breaching in Portree Bay. The gigantic animal was so close to his boat that Brian caught all the action on his mobile phone camera. The image has since gone viral on social media sites.
Records of recent sightings have been submitted by local observers to the research charity Sea Watch Foundation which monitors whales, dolphins and porpoises all over the UK.
Using their huge data set, spanning 40 years, they are able to inform policy on how best to conserve these species given all the changes happening around our coasts.
Humpback whales have been increasing in UK waters in recent years following their massive decline during the whaling era of the first half of the last century. They have now been recorded from the Firth of Clyde around the north of Scotland and into the Moray Firth, with the area between Skye and Gairloch proving to be a particularly popular area for the animals.
Sea Watch maintains a UK-wide catalogue of images of individual humpbacks, recognisable by the pattern of the undersides of their tail flukes, and the shape and markings upon the dorsal fin.
The charity’s director Peter Evans said: “So far we have not found a match with any other humpback individual for the Skye animal.
“The presence of humpbacks close to the coast almost certainly heralds the presence of large quantities of food, and shoals of both herring and sprat – known favoured prey of the species – have been reported in those areas.
And he added: “Minke whales have been seen off the west of Scotland in the same area as the humpbacks.”
Following on from the initial report of the latest humpback, Sea Watch received several reports of the animal from locals and tourists.
The Moray Firth school of bottlenose dolphins is the furthest north recorded group of these animals in the UK.
One of the hotspots to watch them is at Chanonry Point, Rosemarkie, on the Black Isle. Thousands of visitors flock there throughout the year to watch these marine marvels playing in the tidal stream and, in the summer, catching salmon just a few yards offshore.
