1 year, 45 days since the start of the 1st lock down in March 2020
Monday didn't go quite as I had expected. I had planned to finish prepping Niamh’s photographs from last week but… a Minke whale that had been spotted and rescued after a 6-hour mission from Richmond Lock last night, appeared at Teddington weir. I was first alerted by a helicopter circling above. Normally these are police helicopters searching for a criminal that’s done a runner or looking for bodies in the Thames but this time it was a press helicopter so I guessed what had happened and comments on Twitter confirmed this.
I had meant to spend just half an hour to get a grab shot of the whale but in the event I was watching for nearly 4-hours in rain showers and sun. The whale started swimming back and forth appearing every 5 minutes or so in front of the 'fish passes' and then disappeared for a while until spotted again on the other side of the bridge. This is one of the views.
Sadly it seemed disorientated and tired and swam to more shallow water in front of the Flying Cloud cafe as the tide rose quickly. It was quite upsetting to watch it struggling and blowing and occasionally slapping its tail. I eventually left as nobody seemed to be taking any proactive action and I felt sorry for the young whale who had been separated from it's mother and which sadly probably will not survive much longer.
My fears were realised as sadly the hale was very underweight and with a number of injuries so the decision was taken to euthanise it once the tide had dropped enough to beach it in front of the Flying Cloud cafe. Obviously the correct decision but very sad and everyone was hoping for a little bit of good news.
