Guest blogger: Charlie Phillips, Whale and Dolphin Conservation
After an extremely quiet winter for spotting anything with a dorsal fin in this part of the Inner Moray Firth, at long last the spring run of migratory salmon has started, meaning that I am now getting some reasonable sightings of their main predator here at this time of year – the resident bottlenose dolphins.
Dolphins having fun by Charlie Phillips/Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Although I study and photograph these big, intelligent predators throughout the year, I pay particular attention to six of the dolphins as part of WDC's adoption programme.
One by one they are turning up at their regular haunts such as Chanonry Point and the Kessock Channel near Inverness, letting me see that they have come through the long winter period unscathed.
Moonlight and Lunar by Charlie Phillips/Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Sundance, Kesslet, Mischief, Moonlight are all present and correct and have been photographed by me. My researcher friends at Aberdeen University Lighthouse Field Station have photographed Spirit in the waters around Cromarty. This only leaves one of 'my' dolphins unaccounted for at the moment, Rainbow, a lovely female who had a baby last summer. Hopefully she will arrive with her offspring before too long and put my mind at ease.
More about whales and Dolphins on the WDC website.
