Stranded whales return to open water at Kyle of Durness

Rescuers trying to save a pod of around 60 whales at the Kyle of Durness have now returned 44 to open water after a mass stranding.
The whales had perished when they became stranded at low tide.
Around 35 members of the pod beached as the water in the sea loch receded.
The British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) estimated that between 20 and 25 whales had died, while the rest had either been refloated or herded back out to deeper water.
Some 20 of them were refloated to deeper water using inflatable pontoons as the water returned, the charity said.
They said many of the whales had stranded on their sides, on top of each other and upside down and were breathing in sand.
A further 20 are thought to be in deeper water and not in imminent danger.
Yesterday three pilot whales, including a calf, beached on the shore of the loch.
In May, around 60 pilot whales appeared in Loch Carnan, South Uist, although they left the loch after one of the mammals died. The dead whale was later found on an island in the loch.
A post-mortem examination suggested it had died of infection.
Rescuers later said a second whale was found dead in the same loch. It is thought to have died elsewhere and floated in on the tide.
At the end of October last year, other pilot whales almost got stranded in Loch Carnan.
Less than a week later 33 whales, believed to be the same group, were found dead on a beach in Co Donegal in Ireland.
Pilot whales are known to prefer deep water but come inshore to feed on squid, their main food.
A wildlife expert said the main reason for this is that they live in very tightly-knit social groups.
The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) International head of Science Mark Simmonds said: "As they try to help each other, they may all come ashore.
He said the situation in the Kyle of Durness looked like a "whale trap".
He said it was "a narrow and potentially confusing body of water with many soft sandbank areas that may confound their echolocation abilities".
He said: "Something may have startled the group further out to sea and they panicked, came into this unusual situation and were unable to find their way out.
"The stranding of one or two animals would possibly cause distress and the others in the group would try to assist the stranded individuals and themselves get into trouble.
"Stranding on rocks will wound the whales quickly but even on a soft sandy shore it is still a race against time for experts to try to get them back into the water and even then there may be a problem of persuading the group to go back into the open sea."
Post-mortem examinations to try to determine the cause of the stranding and the deaths of the whales will now be carried out by pathologists, assisted by BDMLR medics.