The Snapping Bishop

Its 8.30 on a weekend, I’m up, I’m excited… I have a new camera and I need my fix big time …so what to do, hmmm weathers ok, gets internet going…. ‘whats going on in London today….

Oh my! … a beached whale half way up the Thames…. suddenly I’m on motorcycle making steady progress down to Albert Bridge… Yeah right! I arrive just before ten to massing crowds filling the west side of the bridge and both banks of the Thames, I trot hastily along the Southbank in the same direction after seeing an official looking assembly wearing brightly coloured dry suites in a rescue boat approaching the south beach.

After a lot of dodging, looking, stretching on tiptoe and climbing on things its obvious that all the better vantage points have been taken, Its very crowded now, the narrow paths along that stretch aren’t helping and I’ve only got about 300mm of lens reach. At that point I see the familiar shape of the curved hand rail of a ladder leading down to the beach… Ah freedom… I’m down, phew, ‘not many others gone for it yet’ I think … looking up, and to my amazement I see, in the center of the river, a whale surfacing for an instant and dive down again… the official boats all around seem to be herding him gently towards … well, …’Oooh… towards me!

The gallery below contains 49 concurrent shots in groups of ten, photographed over about an hour.

The last twenty or so images show the whale being strapped into a tubular shaped buoyancy aids, supporting him underneath and either side, these where then inflated to support his weight and gently restrain him allowing them to lift him onto a low barge deck ready for transport out into the wider estuary…. this final moving task took sometime, as I patiently waited down river at another vantage point dusk started to fall as he passed the Millennium Dome.

Not a bad day with a new camera you might be thinking, I certainly felt so at the time, unfortunately, later that day as I waited down river, I heard the rescuers where concerned about whether he’d actually make the trip… So it wasn’t a complete shock when later that evening we where informed by the late news that he’d died of kidney collapse, stress and general exhaustion…

… A sad end to an unusual day.