Charlie Phillips has never forgotten his first meeting with a group of bottlenose dolphins and being served up a mesmerising marine show.
In his role with Whale and Dolphin Conservation, he and his researcher friends from the Lighthouse Field Station at Cromarty were on their way home in 2012 when they encountered a group of big males who wouldn’t leave the survey boat alone.
As the field worker and prolific photographer recalls, they were “escorting us everywhere, getting up to all sorts of acrobatics and shenanigans….it was a bunch that we knew well and I nicknamed them the ‘Bad Boys Club’ and the name has stuck, because I still see many of the group these days and they are still as bonkers.”
He moved in the mid-1990s from the coastal town of Cullen, where he originally became interested in these bottlenose creatures, to North Kessock to run the Dolphin and Seal Centre. And Charlie has spent much of the last 25 years filming, taking pictures, amassing information and being in the company of a species he regards as being as integral to the north of Scotland as golden eagles, red deer, red squirrels and wildcats.
Charlie loves his WDC role
He is in his element, whether watching dolphins from land at Chanonry Point, venturing out on to the water and doing surveys with friends from Aberdeen University or collaborating with local wildlife tour boats – such as Dolphin Spirit from Inverness, Ecoventures at Cromarty and North 58 Adventures at Lossiemouth.
Indeed, this intrepid character even makes a habit of trekking along the coast for Adopt a Dolphin days during the summer, sometimes spotting the same mammals he has photographed a few days earlier in the Inner Firth around Chanonry or Cromarty.
Charlie continually spells out the message that dolphins require help to continue to thrill both local people and the many visitors to Moray, the Highlands and Aberdeen.
In his opinion, humans need to clean up their act when it comes to the sheer amount of rubbish which ends up in the sea, stop polluting the rivers and coastal areas where these dolphins live and give birth to their babies, and offer them more space and respect, rather than harassing them with intrusive boats, kayaks and paddle boards.
This is nature, not a circus
He considers himself fortunate to have the opportunity to witness dolphins in the wild most days when he is working and the thrill never diminishes as the years roll by.
But he recognises it is a rapidly changing environment with significant challenges and concludes, in matter-of-fact fashion: “Life is getting tougher for top predators like these dolphins, and they need all the help we can give them for future generations to enjoy.”
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