Shetland Orcas

Shetland must be the number one spot for seeing Orcas. With two/ three pods around Shetland for around 9 months of the year there is plenty of opportunities to catch up with these great mammals

 This film crew filming Orcas from just above Toft

 I received a report of a pod of Orca moving south from Yell and was able to get to Mossbank just in time to see them , yesterday

 Now Orcas don't like large or fast moving boats and in this case the Yell ferries. They went across the front of the pod forcing them to move north.

 They seem to catch a seal off the southern tip island of Bigga before the ferries passed in front of them and they made their way up the eastern side of the island in about 1/2 hour

 They reappeared and again moved south keeping to the coast line of Bigga and moved very quickly to avoid another encounter with the ferries.

 Just before they came into view again a pod of 7 porpoise moved south quickly, possibly sensing Orcas, as they are a food item of these Killer Whales.

The pod moved quickly through the sound. These photos taken at a great distance from Mossbank

This is pod 19s with Mousa & co, often seen moving between Iceland, Shetland and Orkney from May through out the summer

This pod was seen in Orkney and didn't have a young one at that time so it seems that a little orca was born about 4 weeks and is doing well to keep up with the adults. Adult males coming into maturity around 13 years old while females between 6- 10 years old

The young can be born at any time of year with females mating several times of year. The young orcas are fed by the female for around 18 months

It is thought that Orcas  can live up to 35 years. They appear to becoming a regular feature of the Shetland Wildlife

Another seal is hunted down

Some folk spend several hours chasing the Orcas but on this occasion the pod disappeared after been seen at Lunning sound. This is a difficult section of coastline to observe

The young orca seen on the far left

It seems that seeing Orcas are on most peoples bucket list, whether resident or visitor.

#orcas, #shetland orcas, #shetland killer whales

Shetland Orcas

The Orcas have been seen further north that is until Sunday when they were picked up in Lerwick heading south at speed.

The call in near Tesco before being seen again at Quarff, then Aithsetter and Helliness. We had headed to the lower layby at Cunningsburgh with only one car waiting. Things got a lot busier an hour later as they came along Helliness where several folk could be seen walking along the coastline.

We had just seen a small group of seals close to where the layby is situated, good news. Well it was for five minutes until we found the Orcas had gone past the bay and heading towards Mousa.

There looked like one Bull (Busta) and possibly 4/5 females in pod 64.

We set off and headed down to Clumliewick, a place where they sometimes come in hunting seals. I headed out to the point , a very boggy walk.

After about 10 mins I saw the pod entering Noness and making a kill about 1/2 way out. At least the light was good looking north

They stayed about a few mins before diving and then completely disappearing.

Killer Whales (Orcas) can dive for up to 20 mins so it was no wonder that they then turned up towards Levenwick and had totally bypassed me underwater.

Lots of visitors had good view of these Whales as they travelled down the east side and eventually moving out towards Fair isle

 small group of whale watcher at Noness

Heading off towards Levenwick