Unexpected Visitor Arrives at Whitepark Bay!

A baby dolphin was discovered alive and stranded on the shore of Whitepark Bay beach by Kaiti Kartusov, a Whitepark Bay Youth Hostel guest.

While traveling across Northern Ireland in April 2009, Kaiti Kartusov and her friend Mari-Liis, both from Estonia made their first stop at Whitepark Bay Youth Hostel. It was during their stay when the extraordinary event unfolded.

As Kaiti describes, “we decided to go for a little walk to the beach around 8.00pm. As we were walking, we saw in the distance something moving on the beach. As we walked closer we witnessed it was a baby dolphin.” Luckily the two girls had their cameras handy and took some photos of this most unusual encounter. 

“I ran to help the dolphin back to the water. It was alive and waving its tail…The dolphin was so heavy that we had to wait until the tide came in and then we pushed it to the water. When the dolphin was back in the water, it still wanted to swim to the beach...we waited there to be sure that it was safe…On our way back to the hostel we saw some people going to the beach and we told them what happened and to keep eye on the beach.”

On hearing of Kaiti and Mari-Liis’s encounter, Gretta Scott-Campbell, the Whitepark Bay Youth Hostel manager consulted marine experts and found that the baby dolphin was in fact a Common Dolphin (or Delphinus delphis). So for all dolphin enthusiasts, here are some Common Dolphin facts;

• Found on the Atlantic seaboard of Europe from Scotland south to the Iberian Peninsula, in the Western Channel and Irish Sea.
• They are recorded in all months of the year, but in coastal UK waters mainly July to October.
• Travel in groups of around 10 - 50 in number and frequently gather into schools containing 100 to 2000 individuals. These schools are generally very active - groups often surface, jump and splash together.
• Common dolphins are fast swimmers and enjoy acrobatics.
• They do short dives of 10 seconds to 2 minutes, although dives of 8 minutes have been recorded.
• The diet of the Common Dolphin mainly consists of fish and squid.
• Common Dolphins are highly vocal and can be heard above the surface.

For more details or to book a room at Whitepark Bay Youth Hostel please visit www.hini.org.uk.