It was a very cold early start for the staff and vols on Goosewatch this morning- especially for Tom and Debbie who sat in literally freezing temperatures in Tower Pool Hide looking out for White-Fronted Geese. Sensibly, once the counting was all added up everyone involved headed home to get warm and dry and catch up on a bit of sleep after the early start.
I hadn't been on the Goosecount so stayed around to look after the centre as usual. I'd checked my email earlier in the day to find a report of some Humpback Whales spotted south of the reserve. After missing the Aberdeen whale int he summer this seemed like another one that just got away. I was having a fairly quiet morning when Tim one of our regular birders, came in to say that the whales were still at Collieston, there were at least three, and that they were probably worth going to see if I could find the time...
In about five minutes flat the volunteers were all rounded up, Emma dashed down from the village and we were on the road. Some very brave driving from Suzanne took us through near blizzard conditions around Peterhead- if they kept up we'd be lucky to see even a giant whale unless it was about a foot offshore. thankfully, as we headed south the snow vanished and we were back in bright blue skies. After a brief detour as we tried to find the viewpoint, we parked up and climbed to the topof the hill. Almost immediately Tom spotted a huge 'blow'- the puff of water and air as a whale breathes out- just offshore. I've seen dolphin blows and this summer my first Minke whale signs but this was massive.
We kept looking out for blows and then, behind the next one was a long roll of a whale's back with a small dorsal fin at the back. The whales continued to surface for the next half an hour or so, and a little corwd of people (including a few other interested RSPB staff!) gathered on the hill. While we never saw the whales surface completely, they were clearly far, far bigger than our regular Minkes and the closest one even 'fluked' with its tail fins completely out of the water as it dived.
We've taken some pics but not had time to sort them out yet, so we'll add them to the blog as soon as we can. the whales appear to have been in the area for a few days at least, so hopefully they'll stay around for a bit longer- or better yet head north so we can get them on the reserve list!
Humpback Whale!!!! I want to cry. I'm so disappointed that I wasn't there to see that.
green with envy! should have stayed...