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The sand eel, a small eel-like fish that spends most of the year buried in shallow sediments, plays a key role in this process.

Malcolm Russell says it is possible that they were following sand eels into the bay, or that heavy rain at the weekend made the water much less salty than usual.

“Clams, scallops, flounder, and sand eels are associated with soft sand bottoms,” he said.

He added that minke whales feed on sand eels, sprat, young herring, other "shoaling small fishes" and zooplankton and there "must be good food for this animal to bring it into this area".

"That's when you see all the shots of birds coming back in with beaks full of sand eels and feeding the hungry chicks," said Drew.