A surge in humpback whale sightings has prompted the creation of a community scheme to record the marine life in the Firth of Forth.
The Shorewatch scheme is setting up a base at Kinghorn, where visitors flocked earlier this year for a glimpse of visiting humpback whales.
It also intends to create stations at Pittenweem, Granton and North Berwick.
Members of Forth Marine Mammal Project, who are forming a network of trained volunteers, hope it will encourage more scientific research in the area.
Sam Tedcastle, who has led the initiative with Patsy Wood, said: “The number of sightings we are getting on our Facebook page has demonstrated that there is a lot more marine life in the Forth than people thought.
“People have known for a long time that there are dolphins and that whales come, but we hadn’t realised how frequently.
“I don’t think there is much science being done in the Forth, and we wanted to do something more formal as well as having our page.
“Hopefully we will record sightings over a few years and be able to establish patterns in the whale and dolphin populations.”
A Shorewatch kit, featuring binoculars and recording equipment and funded by anonymous donation, is to be installed at the paths overlooking Kinghorn Beach.
A training session has already been held for around 15 volunteers, and more are planned.
Sam, who lives in Kinghorn, said interest in the local marine life could have benefits for the wider population.
She said: “In Kinghorn when the whales were here we were getting hundreds of people a day. The local businesses were very happy.”
Watchers reckon there were four humpback whales in the Forth during January and February, one of which had been spotted around the same time last year.
Minke whales are seen regularly and in the past there have been sperm whales and orcas.
Sam said: “We don’t want to see sperm whales. If they come to the Forth it means there is something wrong.
“The humpbacks, we think, are coming here to feed which we think is a good sign, although it could indicate there is a problem with their food source elsewhere.
“The more we find out the more questions arise and these are the questions we want to answer.”
The Forth Marine Mammal Project boasts a diverse membership of amateur enthusiasts, including scientists, fishermen and photographers.
The Forth Shorewatch sites will add to already 18 in Scotland around the Moray Firth, west and north coast, the Outer Hebrides and Angus.
A ‘Fife’ whale tracked all the way to Iceland
It was an amateur enthusiast who spotted a whale which spent several weeks in the Forth breaching off Iceland.
Lyndsay McNeill spent months poring over hundreds of photographs and videos to find Sonny, the humpback which returned to the estuary in January a year after first being sighted there.
Video posted online by Arctic Sea Tours, which runs whale-spotting trips from Dalvík, showed the 40 ft mammal leaping out of the water.
Hairdresser Lyndsay, a member of Forth Marine Mammal Project, matched distinctive markings on the whale’s underside to those in photographs taken of Sonny in the Forth by fellow member Bruce Meldrum.
The whale breached repeatedly in front of passengers on board the Arctic Sea Tours vessel in June.
