Killer Thriller: A Suffolk Orca

During a sea watch at Ness Point, Lowestoft, Suffolk, in the early afternoon of Sunday, 30th August 1998, a tall isosceles triangular black dorsal fin arced out of the sea due east through my field of view.

Panning my telescope (Kowa TSN822 32x) in anticipation of the next appearance, the creature again surfaced; and this time a bushy blow was discernable. A cetacean was moving north just beyond the shoals at the southern end of Holm Sand.

Alerting Peter Ransome, who was also sea watching, we watched the animal as it steadily moved north. It kept a constant course parallel to the coast with a rhythmic surfacing frequency allowing easy tracking of its passage. The slightly forward blow was observed several times just ahead and in front of the dorsal fin as the animal surfaced. I stayed on the cetacean as it entered Norfolk waters when it was lost to the haze and distance. The animal had gradually tracked further out to sea, no doubt keeping to the deeper water beyond the sandbar maze. The observation lasted around fifteen minutes.

The weather was cloudy bright, with a light wind, moderate haze and a slight sea state. The tide was on the flood nearing high tide with white water ‘over the shoals. Although the cetacean was observed at a distance just below the horizon, the dorsal fin morphology and blow were clear with no atmospheric distortion as can sometimes occur in certain conditions at range over the sea.

Even at the range observed, the combination of remarkable dorsal height (estimated to have been 4-5 foot), characteristic blow and surfacing rhythm could only have belonged to an itinerant Killer Whale Orcinus orca, most likely an adult bull.

Killer Whales are regularly sighted in the northern North Sea although exceptionally extralimital in the southern sector. Three years previous, on 25th April 1995, an 18 foot female Orca stranded and subsequently died at Pegwell Bay, Kent, some 80 miles to the south.