Director & guide for Shetland Wildlife @shetlandwildlife.bsky.social | Cameraman | Orcaholic | Co-author of Princeton Nature @princetonupress.bsky.social Europe's Sea Mammals, Europe's Birds, Britain's Birds & British Birds.
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Hugh Harrop
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‘shared feature’ matches thanks to the images taken by Jimmy, allowing us to confidently say that the Shetland animals were indeed those from the Oban and Ardnamuchan encounters just seven days earlier!
This is the second significant ‘match’ we’ve made so far this season. In April 2026...
collaborative roles we undertake to try and help increase everyone’s knowledge of these incredible creatures.
as recently as 31 May off Oban and 1 June off Ardnamuchan – yes - 'THAT' pod which featured widely in the media hunting a Common Dolphin a week ago...
Bingo! The bull’s right eye patch, left saddle and dorsal structure was an unequivocal match and we made three further positive matches and two...
before, I was keen to try and find a ‘match’. The Scottish Killer Whale Group (SKWG) is responsible for the Scottish Killer Whale Photo Identification Catalogue and maintains a large repository of imagery of animals photographed in Scottish waters since 2009. Its members are myself, Saana Isojunno..
Karen Munro and Karen Hall. As is typical in these situations, the process of photo ID work began right away and imagery was shared and discussed. It was Karen Munro, who, on seeing one of the images of the bull excitedly suggested we looked at images by Jimmy Hall from an encounter...
we matched at least five individuals off Sumburgh Head to previous documented sightings of a pod recorded twice of the Outer Hebrides and once off Børøyfjorden in southern Norway - the first ever Scottish / Norwegian match. Another shining example of the power of citizen science and the...
I headed to the west side of the cliffs where the pod was closer and photographed and filmed them before they started heading south towards Scatness, and we sporadically had ‘eyes on’ for another 45 minutes. We lost sight of them from Sumburgh Head and as a pod I'd never seen in Shetland waters...
What a set of whiskers - a Bearded Seal discovered by local fisherman Kenny Williamson in the north Mainland of Shetland yesterday morning. There are around 40 UK records of this Arctic seal with nearly half of these being seen here in Shetland.
#MarineLife #MarineMammals #UKWildlife #seal
Hugh Harrop
ORCAS! From Oban to Shetland – an EXCITING photo ID match! Monday morning 8 June 2026 could not have started better for David and our ‘Ultimate Shetland’ group. Just after breakfast we received news from our friends and ardent WDC Shorewatch...
#MarineLife #MarineMammals #CetaceansUK #UKWildlife
