Shocked Onlooker Believes He's Spotted Killer Whale Stalking Popular UK Beach
A photographer thinks he spotted a killer whale stalking the shores of a popular UK beach recently.
David Silcock was out for a walk along Criccieth Beach in Wales when he saw something strange moving in the water.
Aiming his camera at the dark mass lurking beneath the waves, he took a few snaps to have a look at late.
Could it actually be a killer whale stalking the Welsh coast, David thought?
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Unsure as to what he had just seen, he decided to share some of his photos to Facebook, to see whether his friends could shed any light on it.
He asked: "Is this an orca in the bay off Criccieth Beach?"
Some commented on the post, speculating that it could very well have been an orca or another creature.
Speaking to NorthWalesLive, David said he thought it was certainly too large to have been a dolphin, as some others had suggested.
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He told the site: "I saw it in the bay from the viewing point where the cars stop off the main road on the hill behind Dylan's restaurant looking towards the castle.
"It was definitely bigger than a dolphin but I was that busy trying to judge when and where it would surface and so I didn't take as good a look as I could.
"I drove down from the viewing point and took the photo from the beach in front of Dylan's.
"It just moved diving and resurfacing from Black Rock and went past the castle.
"I've previously seen dolphins and last year I saw what I thought were three or four dolphins and these were later confirmed as bottlenose whales."
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However experts have since claimed it was probably just a bottlenose, common or Risso's dolphin.
Sea Watch Foundation said: "But based on the image we believe it is either a bottlenose dolphin or Risso's dolphin."
While marine ecologist Ceri Webster, from Imperial College London, told The Sun: "I would say that it's most likely a common dolphin.
"The angle of the picture probably just makes its fin look a bit longer and thinner."
Last year, a woman divided opinion after she uploaded a video of her getting rid of a sea lion sitting on her boat while surrounded by orcas.
In the video, which was uploaded to TikTok and then later deleted, the woman can be seen ushering the sea lion into the water before driving off.
According to National Geographic: "Orcas hunt everything from fish to walruses, seals, sea lions, penguins, squid, sea turtles, sharks, and even other kinds of whales.
"Orcas have many hunting techniques, and bumping seals off ice is just one of them."
Sam Collins