Some Sightings Out There…

I had word from a contact of mine the other day who does bird watching at Tarbat Ness in the Dornoch Firth, a bit North from here, that he spotted over fifteen Bottlenose dolphins hunting for fish with lots of gull activity overhead. That sounds fairly typical of mackerel or more likely herring fishing by these dolphins – there is a lot of surface activity and this can attract a lots of birds but sometimes the dolphins are chasing the fish and herding them so quickly that the birds take a while to catch up – like in the photo below where a young dolphin is snapping at a fish that is in mid-air. This very cold weather that we are having at the moment often brings in shoals of herring nearer to land where I can keep a watch out for any accompanying dolphins so fingers crossed that I can spot a fin or two before long.