Last Thursday Phil texted with news of a large cetacean off the Spot On Kiosk, which encouraged me to take an early lunch break in his company. Compared with the views others had mine were dreadful (a brief head-only view) but we weren't really sure what it was. Although I think we all knew it wasn't any of the usual Whale species on the radar.
Chris Townend kindly confirmed the identification when he saw Roger's and Phil's photos a couple of hours later, a Northern Bottlenose Whale. He then jumped in his car and headed over, although the Whale vanished at about 12:30 and wasn't seen again, so sadly he missed it. Maybe good news for the Whale though - hopefully this means it went back out to deeper water. Take a look at Roger's photos HERE and Phil's on his Twitter timeline HERE. I wasn't really sure about the status of Northern Bottlenose Whale in UK waters or beyond before seeing this beast, but here's a good overview...
https://www.orcaweb.org.uk/species-sightings/whales/northern-bottlenose-whale
You may remember the 2006 London Whale, which was a Bottlenose Whale, observed swimming up the Thames. She sadly stranded and died on day two. I looked to find some more information about her online, and was surprised to see she has her own website; http://www.thameswhale.info/
Seeing as I didn't manage any pics of our Whale, and the fact I don't like posting photo-less posts, I'm going to rewind back to the hotter parts of the summer, when I spent some time looking for a patch Southern Migrant Hawker. I never did find one, but it was the best summer here for Small Red-eyed Damselflies and a pretty good one for Ruddy Darters too. The latter have really dipped in numbers over the past few years, but this year a wander around Lower Bruckland Ponds would often reveal several individuals, with six on 3rd August being my highest count...
More birdie posts to follow...
You may remember the 2006 London Whale, which was a Bottlenose Whale, observed swimming up the Thames. She sadly stranded and died on day two. I looked to find some more information about her online, and was surprised to see she has her own website; http://www.thameswhale.info/
Seeing as I didn't manage any pics of our Whale, and the fact I don't like posting photo-less posts, I'm going to rewind back to the hotter parts of the summer, when I spent some time looking for a patch Southern Migrant Hawker. I never did find one, but it was the best summer here for Small Red-eyed Damselflies and a pretty good one for Ruddy Darters too. The latter have really dipped in numbers over the past few years, but this year a wander around Lower Bruckland Ponds would often reveal several individuals, with six on 3rd August being my highest count...
More birdie posts to follow...
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