Bottlenose dolphins by drone on the North Norfolk coast - a first!
Yesterday I achieved one of my dreams - to film dolphins from the drone, little did I realise it would be on our own stretch of coast here in North Norfolk.
I was at West Runton setting up to get some footage of the coastline when I noticed splashing around a large rib approx 400m offshore. On flying the drone closer (and using the 3x zoom lens of the DJI Mavic 3 Pro) I discovered to my absolute delight that it was dolphins!
The dolphins stayed around the boat for around 30-40 minutes, clearly enjoying themselves, the boat was the EIFCA (Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority) boat and apparently the dolphins followed them for around an hour from Blakeney to Cley and then rejoined the boat off West Runton where I was lucky enough to film them.
There were around 8-10 dolphins in the pod, all appeared to be adults and from the flashes of white bellies I saw as they dipped below the surface it seemed they may be exhibiting some courtship behaviour. What ever they were up to they weren’t in a hurry to move on and were very curious about the boat and it’s occupants.
Bottlenose dolphins are a very rare sighting off the North Norfolk coast, the last recorded sighting I can see of them was by local fisherman Henry Randall from his fishing boat in October 2020 when a small pod of three followed his boat for a short while. For them to stick around for this long rather than passing through at speed is a really promising sign.
I’m certain this is the first time dolphins have been filmed with a drone off the North Norfolk coast, the screengrabs and video have certainly had a lot of attention in the last 24hrs.
Dolphins do occur around the UK coastline with known resident pods at Cardigan Bay, Wales, the Moray of Firth, Scotland, the English south coast and a fairly new resident pod now settled in Yorkshire. Some people familiar with the Yorkshire pod have had a look at the unique dorsal fin markings of these dolphins and don’t believe they are the Yorkshire pod headed south for a break in North Norfolk.
It’s not known exactly why the dolphins are here but I’d guess that it’s something to do with the unusually high numbers of mackerel we’ve seen off the North Norfolk coast this summer.
Who knows how long they will stick around for but they were witnessed by people watching from the beaches from yesterday morning right up until the evening. Would be amazing if they stuck around and became the North Norfolk resident dolphin pod!
Below is the video footage I shot….