A RARE whale has been caught on camera off the North-East coast.

The northern bottlenose whale, a deep-water species, rarely occurs in the North Sea, but was filmed by local fisherman, Trevor Walker close to the shore of Beadnell in Northumberland.

The report came through to Sea Watch Foundation, the national whale and dolphin monitoring unit, last Friday after the observer became aware of the charity.

Immediately, the staff and volunteers at the research organisation realised that Trevor had correctly identified the northern bottlenose whale from their ID guides after he sent in a video of it just metres from his boat.

Trevor is a regular pleasure fisherman and frequently encounters dolphins on his jaunts.

However, he grabbed the GoPro mounted on his boat when he and his sons, Liam and Brendan, caught a glimpse of this unusual looking whale back in June.

“It was steaming away quite unperturbed by us. We could have followed it, but we just filmed it and moved on so as not to disturb it,” said Trevor.

Northern bottlenose whales have a bulbous forehead with a protruding beak, like an exaggerated version of their namesakes the bottlenose dolphins.

They have a broad-based triangular dorsal fin located about two-thirds of the way along their backs. These leviathans can be up to ten metres long and Trevor estimated that this individual was 7-8 metres in length which might point to it being a female of the species.

Usually found in deep ocean trenches of the North Atlantic, these whales typically occur in the Barents Sea, around Iceland and northwest of Norway, but not usually in the relatively shallow waters of the North Sea.

Another and unusual famous visit from this species occurred 11 years ago when the ‘Thames Whale’ sadly stranded up the London river opposite the Houses of Parliament before having to be euthanased by veterinarians.

Overall, Sea Watch Foundation holds 222 records of this beaked-whale species, spanning as far back as 1966 and as widely distributed as Shetland and the Rockall Bank on the far west of the Outer Hebrides to the Bay of Biscay off northern Spain.

The records in waters directly around the British Isles have occurred almost exclusively away from the east coast with the exception of this 2017 record, the Thames Whale and four other sightings which occurred in the last decade making this latest video even more remarkable.

Kathy James, Sightings Officer for Sea Watch Foundation, said: “I was thrilled to see such a clear video that enabled us to confirm the reported species and it’s just amazing to see this relatively unknown creature of the deep with one of our towns in the background.

"The UK really does have waters that are incredibly rich for cetaceans and reporting sightings to Sea Watch is a really important way to document them for their research and protection."

  • If people are interested to take part in monitoring cetaceans for themselves, they are urged to visit the Sea Watch Foundation website to report their sightings or become a volunteer.

Northern bottlenose whale facts

Scientific name: Hyperoodon ampullatus

Body shape: Bulbous forehead (particularly pronounced in adult males). Relatively short, dolphin-like beak. There are two teeth at the tip of the lower jaw, which only erupt in adult males. The dorsal fin is relatively tall and sickle-shaped, and situated nearly two-thirds of the way along the back.

Colouration: chocolate brown, to yellowish (depending on whether there is a growth of diatoms over the skin), and adult males have a white patch on the forehead.

Size: Females 8.7 m (max), Males 9.8 (max).

Diet:  deep-water squid of the genus Gonatus (particularly Gonatus fabricii), although they also eat squid of other species, as well as herring, deep sea fish, and shrimps. The presence of sea cucumbers and starfish in some stomachs suggests that the species feeds mainly at or near the sea floor.

Distribution: restricted to the North Atlantic, where it occurs mainly in cold temperate and sub-arctic waters. The species favours deep ocean trenches, such as occur off Newfoundland (particularly “the Gully”), western Norway, and in the Barents Sea.