Whale Track Stories: Loch Broom Beluga

©Gordon Ball

Noel Hawkins, a member of the Whale Track community who reports sightings whilst working with Shearwater Cruises in Ullapool, shares a sighting of an unusual and rare visitor to Loch Broom this May.

Spending time at sea, you quickly learn to expect the unexpected, potentially both positive and negative. Sometimes they can be both at once!

On Tuesday 20th May, we set out on The Shearwater to tour Loch Broom and the Summer Isles as normal – still early in the season but we had been getting some regular porpoises, common dolphin, minke, and even some bottlenose that have become a bit of a May feature, though still quite rare by the Summer Isles where we operate.

Heading in from the morning trip, a friend sent a video clip asking what they were looking at in the loch inside of Ullapool at ‘the narrows’ (a narrow part of Loch Broom about 2 miles south of the village where the Moine Thrust intercepts the loch and forms a natural boundary). This isn’t uncommon, as I get pictures and clips with ID requests often, and they can vary from things quite rare and interesting through to a suspicious looking seagull that has eyed up a portion of chips in a lustful manner.

This clip was strange. Distant and not clear, but almost as if the animal swimming away from the shore from where it was being seen was a white cetacean. Whilst my internalised wish list of sightings screamed beluga, rational parts of the brain said must be strange light or another answer as we don’t get them here – depending where you search, 20 to 30 sightings in the UK, ever. And another part of the thought process that has dealt with strandings and entanglement also repeatedly said, please don’t be one.

©Danielle Douglas

 We dropped off the morning passengers and loaded up with a school trip from Edinburgh and debated heading up to look, when a second clip pinged in, and again clearly something white, so we headed out to take a look – thinking worth the gamble on trip schedule. As we got to the area of interest, I started looking at the second clip properly, a message from someone else said it had been confirmed as a minke so we opted to get back on route and head outwards.

Once committed and too far out, a third clip arrived and this time there was no doubt – a long white cetacean, swimming quite close to the surface and raising it head up on occasions. By the time we got back, we couldn’t see it and the kids aboard needed dropping in.

©Robert Glover

Significance of what this might be, and also the growing awareness that such a rare sighting had the potential to lead to a sad outcome, many alarm bells were ringing: an animal well out of its normal environment, on its own, in shallow water, close to shore, that could result in many people out trying to see it, and just a general feel that it shouldn’t be here at all…

Fortunately, working with the Ullapool Sea Savers kid’s group meant we do have a smaller pioneer boat we use for educational trips, surveying and training, so we opted to head back out in it to check the area. As we headed out and chatted, we recalled that the previous Friday evening as we were returning from surveying with a group of the Sea Savers, we had passed something lighter than usual that caught my eye and we stopped to try and check what. The kids and person aboard then saw it out behind us spy-hopping and although in poor light and only a silhouette, the description of what they saw sounded like the head of a porpoise - quite squat, no beak, and if honest, a little ugly (I apologise to all porpoise in advance, they know not what they say!). Having spent years watching our marine life, I have never seen a porpoise spy-hop, in fact, I’ve only seen their faces break the surface on a handful of occasions, and usually when chasing trout at speed.

Reality hit in that we had been meters from the animal days before but hadn’t realised what we were almost alongside at the time.

The time of year meant limited light so we gave up as it got too dark but had started notifying British Divers Marie Life Rescue (who I had been a medic and part of disentanglement team), and some other groups and people we felt should be aware and on stand-by in case required.

©Darren Mackay

At first light we had Cal Major out paddle-boarding the loch, crofters and residents along the coast watching for anything, other boat operators in the area (fishing, fish farm, etc.) were responding that they would give the area a bit of distance and shut down operations if seen again, and even wheels were set in motion to get  word to NATO and others as military operations had been reported in the area further out, and this always causes concern this could be an influence on things (but has NOT been proven in this instance so please don’t head off to promote that – as far as we know, things were shut off for a period just in case). We even had a volunteer with a drone and previous experience of assisting disentanglements and rescues out searching the shores in case the worst had happened. We returned to sea on the small boat first thing too and searched to the head of the loch then out sweeping behind Isle Martin and into Annat Bay then returning to Ullapool by the alternate coast, a good distance in calm conditions.

Despite a huge amount of effort made by many, no sign of the animal.

By the end of the day, no further reports and we started to relax a little and hope the animal had returned to deeper waters and hopefully a route back to where it actually should be.

Then I bumped into a fellow I knew who I’d seen waving at us heading out on the Tuesday morning from the campsite and waved back to happily. “Did you see the whale out behind you as you left the other morning?” he asked, and then shared pictures that another camper had caught as we’d passed by, and yep, there behind us, a white whale on the surface heading into the loch and towards the narrows, so not only had I seen a beluga days before and not known, I had waved happily to a camper as one passed by a couple of hundred meters behind us too.

However, in this instance, I am happy to say I’m glad it has gone, rather than I saw it again in a sadder way. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll see one but preferably where they should be. And once again, have learned that you should always expect anything out at sea. And maybe not wave at happy campers.

Thanks to the efforts of everyone involved:

Clips credited to Danielle Douglas, Darren Mackay, Robert Glover and pictures credited to Gordon Ball.

Thanks to Janis Piggott, Cal Major & Anthony Rigell for help searching.

And to the Beluga for visiting. Please don’t come back!

Thank you to Noel for sharing his story of this unexpected but rather elusive beluga visitor.

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