The Orcas we saw of Sri Lanka in 2013. I find we did have a photograph of the attack on a beaked whale

In the post here I described how, on 25 November 2013, we had seen two Orcas off Dondra Head in Sri Lanka while heading out to see Blue Whales. I continued:

Then things got even more interesting. A fellow traveller on the Naturetrek tour whale-watching extension sent us a still photograph which showed the orcas pushing what appeared to be some sort of dolphin with a brownish coloration around the base of a beak. I had missed it on video as I changed positions but could just see the end of the action as I began to film again. Other photographers had sent stills to OPSL [Orca Project Sri Lanka] and they in turn asked experts on marine mammals. Here is an extract from OPSL’s post of 19 December 2013 (the photographs are shown there):

…OPSL in collaboration with Josh McInnes of the The Transient Killer Whale Research Project are currently writing a small paper on a very exciting finding. When OM001 and OK008 visited Mirissa on the 25th of November, they decided to chow down on the local marine-life...so what's on their menu? Turns out they like Beaked whale, deep diving and little-understood cetaceans of the Ziphiidae family…Observation details include the orcas feeding on an unidentified object. In two of the images, a beak or rostrum can be seen with a patchy brown/green colouration to the surrounding skin. OPSL contacted Josh McInnes, who specializes in the study of mammal-eating (transient) killer whales of the Pacific Northwest, to offer his opinion on the ID. After looking at the photos, Josh concluded that the beak shape and brown/green colouration (caused by diatoms) appears to be consistent with that of a Blainville’s beaked whale Mesoplodon densirostris.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking through the still photographs AJP had taken. I was doing so in order to put them through Topaz DeNoise AI—a great piece of software that reduces drmatically the effects of diffraction in cameras with small sensors. When I enlarged one on screen there was the orca and in front of it, the beaked whale. The rostrum of the latter can be seen clearly.

Here is the photograph from the heavily cropped version to the full frame:

I have amended the original article.

OPSL’s site is well worth a visit because it provides links to details of the Orcas that we saw as well as the others spotted off Sri Lanka and where they went next in the world.