April 19th

The 12s pod

It was a scorching hot day in Caithness when the alert went out: Killer whales, headed up the coast. Caithness has a wonderful community of whale lovers who make clever use of social media to work together in order to help ensure as many people as possible get a chance to see our local whales. I did some quick mental maths and got maps up – reports had said they had been seen in the villages of Berriedale and Latheron, a distance of 15 miles, less than an hour apart. A killer whale can travel at 35mph – they were moving slowly. They were hunting. The previous Sunday however, friends and I had waited 4 hours for the 27s pod to arrive at Duncansby Head as they headed up the coast, only for them to head out towards the Beatrice Wind Farm at Wick. Warily I picked a point to head to that was South of Wick to avoid this happening twice, but far North enough to ensure that they would not pass by before we were able to get there. We bolted into the car and drove to Sarclet Head.

I asked my guests if they had seen Killer Whales before – yes, at seaworld on holiday. They stated this in a tone suggesting they thought this as good as seeing them in the wild. We arrived to yet another Caithness Killer Whale festival. Telescopes and binoculars were out, the cliffs and hillside scattered with dozens of people waiting for their chance. We waited. Continuously scanning the water, talking amongst ourselves about previous sightings. We waited longer. Phones pinged and buzzed and a shout went up – they were 11 miles away!  We kept waiting, it had been almost an hour now – where were they? I looked at the wind farm and back at my guests, one of whom was kicking his feet and scuffing the grass. Boredom. I started to worry the whales had gone out to sea, that my guests would have waited this long for nothing.

A boat suddenly came whizzing past, and right beneath my feet we saw a huge dark mound, fin rolling forward, emerge from the water with a splash as it leapt out of the way, clearly startled. A minke whale! My first! Excitement quickly spread through the group, and rumour spread that it was the killer whales who had at long last arrived, a rumour quickly put to bed by the repeated emergence of the minke whale who began to head away from the cliffs, likely keen to get away from us bloody humans and our noisy boats.

We were still waiting in the heat, not thinking to have brought food, water or sunscreen in our overly optimistic hurry. A shout went up for people to check their phones – blood had been sighted with our whales just around a rocky head to the south which obscured our view. They had indeed been hunting, and although we were hungry, at least they had managed to stop for lunch and catch a porpoise. Good news came with this sighting; the pod was 8 strong with calves and males.  Another reason for our long wait – this was not just lunch, this was a school day. Adults would be using this opportunity to teach their young how to hunt – often they are allowed to practice manouvers on injured prey, even though this delays feeding for the entire pod. Calves also travel slowly, and the rest of the pod keeps pace, hugging the coast line to allow tired young to rest frequently in bays and gullies.

The whales having eaten, our fun began in earnest. Thar she blows! A Spout, 3 metres high seen through a telescope coming round the bend. The minke whale’s bothersome boat had stopped beyond the head that was blocking our view, and all aboard were looking into the bay, excitedly pointing. They were here. Our guests got excited, and the small black lines and triangles breaking the surface got bigger, black and white show stopping faces visible, two fully grown adult males racing towards us. Breaking the surface every few seconds, we didn’t need them to. They passed below the cliffs so closely in water so clear you could see every scratch and marking. Their heads broke the water like colossal U-boats, huge dorsal fins 6 feet tall, their immense power obvious. Every second embedded itself in my memory – the sound of their breath, their dark intelligent eyes beneath their shining white eyepatches, the grey of their saddles patches. Our collective mouths hung open, whoops and hollers of amazement and delight. We weren’t done. The males swam ahead, only for shouts to go up again as the rest of the family followed behind them. Smaller but equally beautiful and in great numbers, mothers and babies. Females with identifying curved dorsal fins broke the surface with calves riding in their slipstream, saving their energy and the effort of breaking the surface tension themselves. The passed us like synchronised swimmers, mothers and babies surfacing in unison as pairs and in sequence as a group. One more male followed behind, bringing up the rear. I hugged my guests as we all grinned and made impressed happy noises. The long wait before felt insignificant compared to this incredible moment. As they passed, we looked at our guest’s photos – she got them. Males, mothers and babies, and what great shots.

Sure enough, they soon headed out to the wind farm and went no further North along the coast that day. They were identified later as the 12s pod – a group of Icelandic Killer Whales that frequently visit Northern Scotland during the summer to take advantage of our seal and dolphin rich waters. Over 200 different individual Killer whales have been photographed in Scottish waters over the last 20 years, and about a dozen pods, or regulars, visit our coast from Icelandic waters annually (or near enough). Three baby killer whales were born in Scottish Waters in 2023, just 50 years since the international whaling ban came into play. Killer whales were often killed in the Northern Isles by whalers as a nuisance or competitor species. Today, the orca that visit are shores are our very own conservation miracle.

MARCH 27TH

HIGHLIGHT TOUR ENTRY

A washout puffin picnic

It has been my busiest week so far this year, and of course, the puffins were not playing ball. They have better things to do of course -  they have just laid their eggs this week. Still, one girl was particularly desperate to see her first puffin, and as it had been her birthday the previous day, I was particularly desperate to show her one. It seemed the perfect chance to trial my puffin picnic idea – I’d already prepared on the weekend by picking up some Clyth charcuteries at the craft fair. I went and bought some Orkney Puffin Ale, Orkney cheese, Tain cheese, local aioli, chutney and oatcakes. I personally hate oatcakes, but they were more local than Lidl’s Rosemary crackers. We arrived at Duncansby stacks to rain. Luckily she was a hardy Geordie lass, and it seemed to bother her about as much as it did me. The picnic basket, heavier than expected, laden with crockery, broke on the way over and had to be hefted across the moor. We put out the picnic blanket and I enthusiastically laid out our picnic on my new favourite tour accessory – a puffin embossed slate cheeseboard.

When I took out the puffin beers we toasted to her birthday, and she was smiling – she took a photo of her ale in front of the puffin colony. The cartoon puffin on the label was to be the only one we would see at that colony. The weather worsened and we packed up. We stopped by Penelope Puffin’s burrow, one of our regular show off birds, but nothing. She prefers to sunbathe anyway, as I would learn over the summer. My mood started to sour and my patter dried up as we scanned the Geo of Sclaites for a last gasp go at a sighting. We had spent almost 2 hours in the rain. I apologised, and started yo move on back to the car park when the sun suddenly came out -  and so did our puffins. I couldn’t resist one last scan of the colony, and their she was, with her husband (I presume, based on his larger size and beak) I shouted and fist pumped. Billing or eskimo kissing behaviour on display and the brightest orange feet of any puffins I had yet seen. We watched them for 5 or 10 minutes, hopping about the cliff face, collecting fresh nesting material, before they returned inside their burrow.

She was so bloody happy, which mad me so bloody happy. We left, and, wanting to ensure against the ‘I would have liked tos’ we headed for Brough Bay. She’d never seen a seal. We trundled down the wee road and I could see four already. It is important to note here that seals must be observed at a distance to avoid disturbance – if they’re looking at you, you’ve already done it, and it is time to move on. They are inquisitive animals who will approach to inspect you. I passed her the binoculars, but they weren’t needed. Shiny black football heads with wet eyes and big eyes, some dark and slick, some lighter in colour – grey seals. I looked to my right and the smile on her face was heartwarming, it touched her eyes and they were bright with excitement. This is the look on my guests’ faces that never fails to make my day, as a sign of a new bond between humans and wildlife, and hopefully a newly inspired conservationist.

MARCH 11TH

HIGHLIGHT TOUR ENTRY

Hulk and Nott

I’ll be honest, there’s not a lot I remember about the runup to this one. It is OrcaWatch, a week long event organised by the seawatch foundation to collect data on Scottish Orca and other marine mammals to the benefit of their conservation. Killer Whales had been sighted, and they were headed north along the east coast of Caithness. Each pod of killer whales behaves differently – the 27s for example, like to hug the coast and can take hours to travel 60 miles, possibly due to the fact that they have a high number of calves who benefit from rest in coves, slow travel and teaching opportunities. With more sightings it seems likely who these whales are; Hulk and Nott, 2 adult bull males from Iceland who are regular summer visitors to Caithness. With no calves, they can travel their maximum speed of 35mph if they wish. The short time frames between sightings suggest they are heading to Orkney as they often do, and will likely be at Duncansby stacks within the hour. We are half an hour away in Thurso and it is time to get a wiggle on.

En route I talk about the life cycle of orca and the peculiarity of our Scottish redidents and visitors, but once we arrived there were 100 others waiting. We dashed past our usual puffin spots to reach muckle stack, a sea stack that provides us with some of our most reliable sightings of regular favourites. But none of us were particularly aiming for the puffins after June told me it had been a dream of hers to see killer whales, and excited cries were heard from some onlookers ahead a few hundred metres ahead. I dashed up the hill losing myself in excitement for a moment, but looking behind me to reach out to June and Ben. Ben was carrying equipment and urged us to head on up without him. We hesisted but in my head, in my excitement I am not sure if this actually happened, I grabbed her hand to help her run across the heath with me to the clifftop. When we got to the top muckle stack held a dozen puffins and I quickly realised the whales were still quite distant, almost invisible if you didn’t know what to look for. I encourage June to enjoy the puffins while I waited for Ben and got a lock on the whales with the assistance of the OrcaWatch volunteers. Two fingers below the horizon and three fingers in from Noss lighthouse in the distance, I saw a small, thick black line emerge and disappear. The excitement rose but was muted as I called over June and Ben – the first distant sightings are usually a little disappointing, and not the free willy jumping the harbour wall of the subconcious. The best part begins as soon as you can see that face – black, round, that huge white eye patch, and each sighting bring more and more awe as they get closer and closer, ramping the excitement and you feel like a child. I have come to recognise the excited yip, yelp, gasp, jump, happy dance, point or cry of delight when a sighting is finally obtained through binoculars.

The fins got taller and the faces came into more detail, as they approached the foot of the cliffs where we stood. The sunlight glittered on their backs as the passed through water so clear that their markings were visible even under water. So close we could see and hear their breathing, blows of water droplets 3 metres high. They passed us. We chased them, 50 others running across a field like kids desperate for more sightings, more photos. We came around the geo of sclaites, past the fulmar, the guillemots, the razorbills, the puffins, and towards Duncansby lighthouse to watch the swim past again, then further than we could walk, into the pentland firth at high speed, off to Orkney as usual.

You squeeze every last drop out of these sightings – that tiny line that you weren’t sure you saw at the beginning of the experience becomes a permanent treasured memory as it becomes your last sight of them. We stayed long after others left, and were rewarded – tiny lines reappeared. Common dolphins. Coming from the other direction. This sighting was shorter, but we watched 3 swim underneath our feet, the water clear enough to see their yellow markings as their undulating movements pushed them past. We watched them leave, and started the puffin tour.

1st of March: Spring’s a-coming.

It’s been a long and quiet winter in Caithness. Very few of the usual fires to sit next to I usually seek out, and the northern lights, so noisy and abundant last winter, have been quiet or muffled by the continuous storms. I am continuously checking the wind speed and direction to determine the best walking route for my dog. Once it gets above 50mph the howling is constant and occurs almost daily, and only once you hear the now familiar sound of a wheelie bin flying down the hill, you call it a day and crack out the puppy pads. Luckily, my 41kg Great Pyrenees is afraid of the wind and is quite happy to curl up and sleep through the worst of the almost constant storms. I have kept busy with job hunting and a dozen interviews, books and knitting; as much as I love Seawolf, it gives me plenty of time to contribute to conservation in other ways. To no avail, but as I’m told, Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye.

But during my daily walks I am noticing changes. Snowdrops, my old Granny’s favourite and an ever pleasant reminder. I see early and familiar fulmar back at their nests on the Thurso cliffs, and recognise two as friends from their identical nest position; Primrose and Harris, my favourite couple. They’ve made it another year. There are blue skies and the beaches are pleasant again – we find sea glass and shark egg cases that we report to the Shark Trust. Reaching the river we regularly find up to a dozen members of our local harbour seal colony sunbathing on their Islands or bottling, napping with their noses just visible above the water.

Reports of our resident killer whale sightings in Caithness are increasing in frequency, though the majority of their time is still spent in the Northern Isles. It is exciting to see however – 2 Scottish Born calves within the last 2-3 years will have made crossing the Pentland Firth difficult for them, and to see these families doing so in winter on early Spring tides is encouraging for the season ahead.

But one day this week is particularly good. Pure blue skies and no wind, Selkie the dog and I head into town and upriver. It is full of ducks and about 5 female harbour seals banana-posing happily on the Island by the footbridge. Walking along the esplanade we look down at high tide to see dozens of waders running in and out of the surf; ringed plover, sanderling, oystercatcher in their own group further down, redshank, and my favourite shorebird the Turnstone, with their low burning coal cryptic patterning, oranges, browns, blacks, and their beautiful white breast plumage.

The day maker is the bird I have been excited for since seeing the announcement of its’ return to England – 2 gannets, almost undoubtedly a breeding pair. Probably 300m out, but the brightness of their white plumage and their size makes them unmistakeable. They shine so brightly that other members of their species are able to spot them from a height that also allows them to witness the curvature of the earth. Being able to see in UV means that these incredible animals are glowing, each bird a lighthouse to another than says “home” or “fish”. There is none of their delightful kamikaze divebombing, just slow and clumsy flight over the bay.  I love to tell guests about their speed- 60kmh dives, folding their wings and dropping on unsuspecting fish. The air bags they learn to inflate within their skin to prevent breaking bones; the casualties among the young who drop from too high and inflate too late. There are gannet schools to prevent this – in August through October you can watch pebble-dashed juveniles following their parents around in large groups, watching one another dive, and taking their own turns to practice. Very few things could have put me in a better mood. I head home for a cup of tea.