Whale video shows rare footage

The footage from 2019 was recently discovered to show a rare sight.

A rare video of a pilot whale expelling its placenta in Yell Sound has been released four years after it was originally taken. 

Drone pilot Nick McCaffrey didn’t realise how unique his footage was until he shared it with Emily Hague, a marine mammal researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Mr McCaffrey said it “took him a moment” to realise how important his footage was but he knew he had “something significant”.

The footage shows the pod of whales “celebrating” the birth of a calf after the placenta has been expelled by the mother.

Ms Hague and Mr McCaffrey have now published the footage in the academic journal Aquatic Mammals and say the clip gives insight into the lives of pilot whales.

According to Marine Scotland, the long-finned pilot whale has a large, bulbous forehead and a long, robust body, which can measure up to 6.3 metres in length. 

Mr McCaffrey is part of the crew who filmed for the BBC series Wild Isles.