SkegnessVideo.com

DID YOU SEE THE HEADLESS WHALE? 
HEADLESS MAMMAL DEPOSITED ON FORESHORE 

More people were seen on Skegness beach during the weekend than for many a long day.
The “attraction” was the headless body of a whale which had been washed up by the tide. Its girth may be judged by the fact that its diameter exceeded three feet. The mammal was deposited by the tide some distance seaward of the Sun Castle.
A PREDECESSOR
A similar specimen was washed up on the shore further urther northwards about twelve months ago. Its carcase was riddled by bullets, and the new arrival was probably also a war victim, by coming into contact with a mine.
Its condition indicated that it had only recently lost its head, but exposure to the sun’s rays on the beach
will certainly advance decomposition unless the carcase is speedily rapidly removed.
This weekend’s event recalls that the Pier and the Whale in the Ship “Eliza” were Skegness’s biggest beach attractions fifty years ago.

May 1941

Visitors to Hardy’s Animal Farm, Ingoldmells, four miles north of Skegness, can feed the animals and learn how they are reared and cared for. The working farm is set in seven acres of Lincolnshire countryside.

When we paid a visit to the farm there was a triple celebration underway…

One of the nanny goat had just given birth to triplet kids.
The proud mum is pictured below with her babies which are just a few days old.

The farm has lots of attractions, including peacock, rhea birds, rare breeds of poultry, pigs and llamas.

Telephone 01754 872267 for the opening times and more details.

Source: Skegness Standard 1985/86

Whale hunters were out in force on a beach near Skegness at the weekend, after a 50ft Sperm whale was washed up dead at Gibraltar Point.

Representatives of the British Museum were pulling teeth and many local people went down just to look.
Meanwhile, Mr Malcolm Whitehead of East Lindsey District Council’s environmental services was worried.
His problem was how to dispose of it — it was dead and gradually getting very smelly.
“We had two alternatives,” he said. “The first was to wait until the weekend, when there will be a high Spring tide, and tow it out to sea.
“But there are problems with that. We’d have to sink it somehow, and I don’t know how to sink a whale. And by the weekend, it have decomposed so much that it might fall apart when we try to move it.

“The people from the British Museum advised us not to blow it up — not that we were thinking of it — because somebody tried that on the Northumbrian coast and showered Newcastle with whale!”

So Mr Whitehead’s answer was to bury it on the beach.
This has often been done with whales before, but not with one as big as this.
Mr Whitehead said that was was possibly the biggest whale ever to be found in the area, and certainly the biggest in recent years.
Mr Duncan Yeadon of Natureland identified it as a male sperm whale.
Fifty feet long and seven feet high, the whale’s lower jaw was six feet long.
The sperm whale is one of the world’s largest carnivorous creatures, and lives on squid, cuttlefish, octopus and shark, but has been known to swallow humans.

Recent Whale Strandings on Skegness Beach

Source: Skegness Herald 1895 - 1901

A letter to the Editor:

THE SHOOTING OF SEAGULLS ON THE FORESHORE

DEAR SIR

As one who has spent many happy months at your charming resort, both in winter and summer, during the past few years, may I be permitted to offer a protest against a practice, that has of late become common here. That is the idle butchery of sea birds.

Several young men appear to have acquired guns and licenses - there is nothing discreditable about that; but instead of using them in the more legitimate lines of sport an indiscriminate slaughter of seagulls seems in accordance with their ideas.

So recently as last Sunday, while walking with a lady near the sea, I saw two “sportsmen ” having winged a gull instead of humanely putting au end to it s existence first handled it, then watched with apparent enjoyment the gruesome efforts of the maimed bird to rise, and at last bungle the contents of a second cartridge in their victim.

A hundred yards distant, my lady companion, who was naturally shocked at the wantonness of the whole thing, and I came across another gull, shot dead and left to rot, perhaps by another party.

I am telling you sir, of an incident which occured not miles away bat directly in front of your ClockTower last Sunday morning.

I enclose my card, and beg to subscribe myself

AN INDIGNANT VISITOR.

Source: Skegness Herald 1886

I need help here! Perhaps some budding entomologist can shed some light on this ‘rare’ lepodoptera! The article below gives the Latin name of a moth which was found in Skegness, Dieranura Vinida. It MUST be very rare as search as I may, I simply cannot find a picture of it on the internet!

A RARE SPECIES OF MOTH

On the 23rd inst. there was observed by Professor Davies a curious specimen of insect life hovering about the vicinity of his camera obscura, which is situated at the extreme end of the Skegness pier.

The professor was so fortunate as to capture it, and upon examination it was found to be one of those beautiful and extremely rare species of moths termed Dieranura Vinida, the beauty of it being beyond description.

It is now in the possession of Mr. Wain, of the Counties Photo Company, North Parade, who will have great pleasure in allowing any entomologist or others interested to examine this interesting specimen, so seldom found upon our coast.