Cruising the Firths

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We had some family up visiting last week - a definite perk and one of the key reasons why we moved to the U.K. On one of the days, we booked a trip on the Dolphin Spirit. The 90-minute cruise took us in a loop around the Beauly Firth and then out into the Moray Firth in search of area wildlife. It was a bit cold out on the water, but we had a great time.

I took this from the parking lot. This is the Kessock Bridge, which connects Inverness to the Black Isle. The Moray Firth is beyond the bridge.

 The first wildlife we encountered was a pod of harbor seals hanging out on an island near the bridge. I was, and remain, ridiculously excited at the idea that I saw seals in the wild. I live where seals live!

They are so cute! We also have gray seals living in the area, but we didn't see any of them.

Our area is home to a resident pod of bottlenose dolphins, and the area typically hosts about 200 dolphins. The animals aren't tagged or anything like that, but they are well-known to the tour guides and scientists because each dolphin's tail and fins are unique to that animal. They're like our fingerprints. Because of this, when we happily encountered two dolphin who were merrily hunting the salmon and sea trout that were in the area to spawn, our tour guide knew right away they were Kesset and Charlie, a mother-and-son duo. Kesset is 23 years old and Charlie was her first baby. He's ten-years-old.

Something I didn't know about bottlenose dolphins: The ones in our firth are the northernmost residents of the breed. As a result of their cold surroundings, they're much bigger than their brethren we're used to seeing in warmer Atlantic waters (and in those infernal water parks). A typical bottlenose dolphin is about 300 kg (about 661 pounds) and is around three meters (nearly ten feet) long. Our dolphins are about 500 kg (over 1100 pounds), and are between four and five meters in length! That's between 13.1 and 16.4 feet!

I didn't get any photos during our first encounter with Kesset and Charlie. They were moving so fast and, to be honest, I was more caught up in the excitement of seeing them than worrying about my camera. We came across them again at the mouth of the River Ness. They were in hot pursuit of some salmon and that took them further up the river than we could go. These are the only shots I managed:

 This is Charlie in the midst of that splash. You can just make out either a fin or a mouth. I zoomed in the photo in post-production, so it's not as clear as I'd like.

And this is Kesset, again zoomed in. I think that's her dorsal fin. Next time, and there will be a next time, I will be a bit more diligent with my camera.

The rest of these photos are just shots I took during our cruise. Enjoy!















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