SPOTTED - Ballycastle photographer scoops picture of elusive Beluga whale

Gordon had visited a stretch of coast between Portbraddan and Dunseverick to photograph jellyfish but as he looked down from the cliffs spotted the distinctive arching back of the beluga breaking the surface.PICTURE GORDON WATSON/MCAULEY MULTIMEDIA

A Ballycastle photographer has scooped an incredible sighting of a highly elusive whale from the High Arctic in what is only one of a handful of times the species has been seen off the UK’s coastline.

Lucky photographer Gordon Watson managed to capture a shot of the beluga earlier this week off the coast of County Antrim while out looking for much smaller marine animals.

Gordon had visited a stretch of coast between Portbradden and Dunseverick to photograph jellyfish but as he looked down from the cliffs spotted the distinctive arching back of the beluga breaking the surface.

Thousands of belugas live among the ice floes that litter the area east of the Svalbard archipelago, but only on extremely rare occasions do they swim as far south as the British Isles.

THE incredible sighting of this enigmatic and highly elusive whale from the High Arctic is only one of a handful of times the species has been seen off the UKs coastline.PICTURE GORDON WATSON/MCAULEY MULTIMEDIA

The beluga sighting is bound to be the headline event of Sea Watch’s annual National Whale and Dolphin Watch, taking place this week from Shetland to the Channel Islands.

Hundreds of cetacean enthusiasts have been braving high winds and unseasonal cold seas in a flotilla of boats to count the whales and dolphins that feed, breed and migrate around our coastline.

Sea Watch says the beluga sighting is believed to be the first from Northern Ireland, while there have only been 17 previous British records, 10 of them in the last 30 years.

The vast majority have been from Scotland between June and September.