Seahouses fishing boat has close encounter with killer whales off Northumberland coast

They were spotted by the crew of the fishing boat Sea Menace around 18 miles off Seahouses.

Fisherman Jamie Holmes, 31, noticed them on Friday afternoon after hearing the noise being made by seabirds.

“I was shocked to see them,” he admitted. “I’ve been a fisherman since I was 17 and never seen them before.

"There must have been about a dozen of them and there were babies there too. The largest was probably about eight metres long.”

Jamie, from Seahouses, added: “We went over to them to have a closer look and thought they would move on because of the noise of the fishing boat but they kept hanging around.”

Orcas, also known as killer whales, are the largest member of the dolphin family.

A male orca can be nearly ten metres in length and weigh 10,000kg.

A wild orca pod can cover over 160 kilometres a day, foraging and socialising.