An early morning WhatsApp message came through from the local cetacean sightings group stating:
Hi, big Humpback spotted this morning Braes, spotted around Upper Ollach, close in.
Well, that was more than enough to get this shirker out of bed and onto the road instead of into a room to finish the interior painting. Can't think why it's taking me so long...
I arrived at my usual viewpoint at Gedintailor, maybe half a mile south of Upper Ollach, but after half an hour I'd failed to see anything larger than a Gannet. I decided to shift position and tried another quarter mile north. I parked up and walked to the clifftop, and quickly realised that the view here was far better and expansive than at Gedintailor. One to remember for next time.
I wasn't sure how far out the Humpback Whale would be, it was reported as being "close in" but that was over an hour ago. By now it could be halfway to Applecross, for all I knew. I scanned around with my binoculars when suddenly, just a few hundred metres away, a huge grey shape broke the surface before quickly diving down again. "Muck Fe, Seth" was more or less what I uttered in awe. A lot closer than I was expecting! I replaced my binoculars with my camera and held it about an inch from my eye, raised and in position to click the shutter like a loony as soon as the whale reappeared. Which it didn't.
After about fifteen minutes of playing statues, just my eyeballs moving whilst the rest of me remained motionless, I had to lower the camera and stretch my back. Yep, you guessed it..."nooo waaaaay!!" I cried as almost immediately the whale surfaced some distance ahead of me. I swung the camera upwards and barely captured the arse end as it disappearing back beneath the waves.
Submerging tail flukes heading left to right
Well, that wasn't exactly ideal. I wondered if it had been watching me, just waiting for me to drop my arms. Probably not. Everyone knows that whales are highly intelligent but they're presumably not deliberately mischievous or camera shy.
I returned to being a statue once more, camera poised just in front of my nose, and waited. And waited some more. And then there it was!!! I swivelled my body slightly to the right, lined myself up and hit the button - all within the space of about one second. I saw the whale in my viewfinder, I could hear the shutter clicking away, I'd already checked the settings and knew they were about right. Sweet, I just kept pressing that button and hoped for the best!
Well, the best wasn't precisely 'awesome' but the images I captured were certainly the best I'd ever taken of a Humpback, or of any whale for that matter. I'm very pleased anyway.
Taken amongst a series of shallow dives before it did another lengthy dive
I remembered that Humpbacks typically come up from a long dive with a big bushy blow and then sink two or three times, each for just a few seconds, before going on another long dive. So after it sank for the first time, I panned the camera in the same direction and at the same speed as the swimming whale and sure enough it surfaced right in my viewfinder as hoped. Fabulous!
The nostrils are visible in the lower image
It was a bit of a wait until it came up next, by which time it had moved further away from my viewpoint. I'd already notified the WhatsApp group that it was still present, and even done a little map for them. I put up a pic and local whale enthusiast Rigell asked if I could send him some images in an attempt to match it with a known individual.
Rigell has a drone and a big camera, he captures some incredible cetacean footage. He has a video clip of a different Humpback lunge-feeding through a shoal of fish and accidentally scooping up three immature Herring Gulls at the same time. A few seconds later it turns sideways and spits the gulls out, which then fly off!!! Breath-taking footage, and it makes you wonder how a feeding whale can distinguish three gulls amongst a mouthful of writhing fish and then spit them out without losing any fish. It's just boggling!
Anyway, I've emailed him the best of my somewhat mediocre images. Zoomed right in tight, there are a few marks on the flukes that can be seen, and there's an odd black dot on the side of the dorsal hump. Rigell actually said he thinks he recognises the hump, though he could be mistaken because he's seen so many! It's been an hour and I haven't heard back yet other than to say he received them. He's either laughing his socks off or has given himself a migraine trying to pick out details I guess. Hopefully somebody will grab some decent images of it soon.
One thing is certain though, all of the previous Humpbacks in Skye waters this winter have been youngsters. Still big beasts, but not massive. This thing was MASSIVE. So, whether or not it gets matched up to a known individual, it shows that Humpbacks are still moving through Skye's waters even at this time of year. As an aside, the area where this Humpback is located is precisely the same patch of sea that held the Sperm Whale that I saw in February of last year. Without a doubt, this is now my favourite patch of water around Skye! Oddly enough, I've yet to see a Minke here, and they're supposed to be the common ones.
Apologies to everyone I pinged images to in the first few minutes after I came away from the clilfftop. I was sat in the car reviewing the back-of-camera images and was so full of excitement I just had to share! I definitely didn't mean to grip anyone (apart from Ghostie, heh heh).
Just because this is what's playing as I type this. And it's amazing :)
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