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The Sun
11-06-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Disc golf match interrupted as hammerhead SHARK falls from sky half-a-mile away from ocean
A DISC golf game was put to a halt after a SHARK fell from the sky. A bird recently dropped a hammerhead shark onto a disc golf course in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. 4 4 4 On May 18, disc golf games were taking place on Splinter City Disc Golf Course in South Carolina. However, a small dead hammerhead shark crashed down near the 11th hole of the wooded course. It turned out that an osprey bird flying over Myrtle Beach dropped the shark. Myrtle Beach is about half a mile away from the Atlantic Ocean. The unusual event was witnessed by Jonathan Marlowe, who recalled the moment of the tiny hammerhead falling while he was playing disc golf. "It's not uncommon to see an osprey carrying something, but you take note because it's really cool to see," Marlowe told Garden & Gun magazine. "I thought it would be a random fish." The fish turned out to be a small, deceased hammerhead shark. Marlowe said the bird dropped the shark after being accosted by a couple of crows in a tree. The shark was easily identifiable due to its distinctive, wide, T-shaped head. US Open release incredible video of army of lawnmowers to tackle rough as stars brand conditions 'unplayable' Marlowe was with friends during the sequence as the group left the shark under the tree in case the osprey wanted to retrieve it. However, Marlowe was informed later that day that the shark was still there, after another disc golfer who had noticed it commented on his Facebook post, recalling the situation. Myrtle Beach's Disc Golf Facebook page revealed that the course tends to get visits from snakes, raccoons, and alligators. However, it's safe to say that seeing a shark on the property, which opened in 2020, is a first and likely won't happen again. "We couldn't believe it and kept asking ourselves, 'did that really just happen?'" Marlowe said. 4 It appeared to be a baby hammerhead shark. Hammerhead sharks can reach up to 20 feet in length and weigh over 1,000 pounds. They typically live for 20-30 years. There are 10 known species of the hammerhead shark. It's not known which species fell from the sky in Myrtle Beach. But it's not unusual for hammerheads to swim in the South Carolina waters. Georgia.
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Real-life Sharknado! Man is left baffled after a hammerhead shark falls from the SKY onto a golf course
As everyday perils go, there are plenty of ways to get hurt. From tripping up on a pavement to giving yourself a paper cut, there are countless accidents waiting to happen. A shark falling from the sky likely isn't at the top of your list of things to look out for. But – in scenes reminiscent of the film Sharknado – that's exactly what occurred at a disc golf course in South Carolina. Remarkable photographs show a hammerhead shark after it plummeted from the heavens and landed at the Splinter City Disc Golf Course in Myrtle Beach. The unusual event took place on May 18 near the 11th hole of the wooded course near the ocean. 'We couldn't believe it and kept asking ourselves, "Did that really just happen?" Jonathan Marlowe, who witnessed the event, told Garden & Gun magazine. But rather than a tornado picking up the shark and dropping it from the sky – as depicted in the film – there is a slightly more logical explanation for the unusual incident. While it is possible for waterspouts to suck up fish from the sea, in this instance an osprey was the culprit. The bird of prey, known for being an excellent aquatic hunter, regularly dives into water from a significant height to catch fish with their sharp talons. This one however, seems to have picked up a small hammerhead by mistake. It's likely the osprey carried the shark at least half a mile (800 metres) from the ocean before losing its grip. Mr Marlowe said he saw two crows chasing the osprey into a tree, where it dropped the hammerhead onto the ground below. 'It's not uncommon to see an osprey carrying something, but you take note because it's still really cool to see,' he said. 'I thought it would be a random fish.' Experts say this 'mobbing' behaviour from crows isn't unusual, especially in the springtime, when the smaller birds team up for safety to chase potential predators away from their nesting sites or food sources. Ospreys, known for being excellent aquatic hunters, regularly dive into water from a significant height to catch fish with their sharp talons (stock image) According to the Myrtle Beach Disc Golf Facebook page the likes of snakes, alligators and raccoons are common sights on local courses. The film Sharknado, which was released in 2013, depicts an unprecedented weather event off the coast of Mexico that rips out a ravenous river of sharks. These man-eating fish are scooped up in tornadoes and transported to Los Angeles, where they become a deadly airborne threat. Although no shark tornadoes have ever been reported in real life, fish, frogs, jellyfish and even - allegedly - alligators have been reportedly moved by waterspouts. The extinct beast from beneath: Megalodon roamed the seas more than 3.6 million years ago The megalodon, meaning big-tooth, lived between 23 and 3.6 million years ago. O. megalodon is considered to be one of the largest and most powerful predators in vertebrate history and fossil remains suggest it grew up to 65 feet long. It's thought the monster looked like a stockier version of today's much feared great white shark and weighed up to 100 tons. Megalodon is recognizable due its huge vertebrae and teeth, which are triangular and measure almost eight inches in diagonal length. Famed fossil hunter Vito 'Megalodon' Bertucci took almost 20 years to reconstruct a megalodon's jaw - largest ever assembled - which measures 11 feet across and is almost 9 feet tall. The Megalodon's colossal mouth would have produced a brute force of 10.8 to 18.2 tons. The ancient shark has been described as a super predator, because it could swim at high speeds and kill a wide variety of prey such as sea turtles and whales, quickly in its strong jaws.
BBC News
04-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
The great iceberg hunt on Canada's epic new road
A sweeping new highway – nearly 25 years and C$1bn in the making – is reshaping life in Newfoundland and Labrador and opening up Canada's iceberg coast. Standing on a windswept outcrop on the island of Newfoundland's northern coast, I scanned the churning, blue-steel sea for icebergs. Somewhere beyond the restless waves lay the glaciers of Greenland and the ice fields of Arctic Canada. I was hoping to glimpse their offspring – behemoths calved from ancient ice shelves, carried south over two or three years by the Baffin Island and Labrador Currents into a region known as Iceberg Alley, a stretch of water between the southern coast of Labrador and the south-eastern shore of Newfoundland. Squinting, I caught sight of a solid white shape; a still patch in the Labrador Sea. For a heartbeat, I thought I'd found one. Then it vanished in a burst of froth and spray. My husband Evan and I continued along the rocky trail, ducking out of the wind behind a patch of tangled tuckamore. Made up of hardy, slow-growing boreal trees like balsam fir and black spruce, the wind-contorted forest barely reached my chin. Up ahead, Evan pointed out an osprey, fragile and exposed, as it spread its wings to dry. Beyond it, the ocean vista was punctuated by sea stacks, sculpted cliffs and a small, curved bay dotted with abandoned homes. Despite the blue sky and warmth of late spring, life in Newfoundland and Labrador demands ingenuity and resilience. Like the meadow grasses and wildflowers clinging to the salt-laced soil, the people here have only ever held a precarious grip on this wondrous place. I inhaled deeply, marvelling at the austere beauty – then another glint of white caught my eye. "Only a boat," Evan said, following my gaze. One week into a two-week road trip across Newfoundland, we had yet to spot an iceberg. They were out there; each morning, the iceberg-tracking map showed giants drifting to our west. The problem was geography. Newfoundland and Labrador's pleated coastline means a berg 50km away by water could be 400km by road – and this season, they were clustered in the southern bays of Labrador, a region that was, until recently, among the hardest to reach. In a place where the ocean long served as the main highway, roads came late. When Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, there were just 195km of pavement for a province with more than 29,000km of coastline. The obvious solution was to build roads, with the goal of improving access to jobs, schools and healthcare. But this came at a cost. Building takes time and the initial roadways bypassed many small coastal settlements, leading to the abandonment of more than 300 outport communities. "But a new road can change everything," Keith Pike, the city manager in Red Bay, an outport on Labrador's southern coast told me, after I'd continued my trip west. Just 80km north of the Quebec border and the Newfoundland-Labrador ferry terminal in Blanc-Sablon, Red Bay hugs the edge of the Strait of Belle Isle. Not long ago it also marked the end of the old gravel road; isolation that forced Pike to leave the place his family had called home for generations. But with the recent completion of the Trans-Labrador Highway – known as Expedition 51 for the latitude it follows – he has returned, and is hopeful others might do the same. The 1,200km highway, nearly 25 years and C$1bn in the making, threads across Labrador's sweeping terrain, linking inland towns, distant outports and more than 9,000 years of human history. It's the kind of rugged drive that road-trippers dream of, forming a loop through Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and even touching into the US and the French islands of St Pierre and Miquelon. While only a few people are expected to drive the entire circuit, Pike sees the road's greatest legacy in its promise. "People like me are able to come home because of the opportunities it's creating," he said. In simple terms: the places Newfoundlanders and Labradorians call home have proven to be alluring to travellers looking for wild landscapes and meaningful cultural encounters. And along Expedition 51, visitors aren't just welcome, they're needed. It's a place where thoughtful tourism can help sustain places that have endured against the odds. In Indigenous communities, the road is already sparking new ventures. Barbara Young, marketing coordinator for the Newfoundland and Labrador Indigenous Tourism Association, says local entrepreneurs are building businesses rooted in tradition. From guided hikes with Kaumanik Adventure Tours in Port Hope Simpson to Inuit art at Caribou Place in Mary's Harbour, these stops invite travellers to engage with cultures that have thrived here since time immemorial. History, too, is central to Red Bay's story. A major Basque whaling station in the 1500s, the long-abandoned settlement grew out of the whale oil that once lit Europe's lamps. Today, Parks Canada and the townspeople are betting on the new highway drawing more visitors to the Red Bay National Historic Site. They've invested in a new interpretive centre, expanded boardwalks through Saddle Island's archeological sites and improved hikes like the Boney Shore Trail where whale bones still line the coast. More like this:• Canada's remote (but accessible) dark-sky sanctuary• A cutting-edge tourism model in Newfoundland• The only land disputed between the US and Canada As Evan and I chased icebergs, I realised Expedition 51 is also opening more of Iceberg Alley. New operators like Whaler's Quest Ocean Adventures now offer boat tours out of Red Bay, often with a side of traditional music by locals like Pike. It may seem ironic that a seafaring province closely associated with the Titanic – just one of the more than 600 documented ship-iceberg collisions that have claimed more than 3,400 lives over the past two centuries – is embracing iceberg tourism. Back when most communities relied on the cod fishery, the massive bergs that drifted by each spring were deadly navigational hazards. But as coastal populations dwindled, the icy giants offered a glimmer of hope. Twillingate was one of the first to embrace the shift. Straddling two islands linked by a narrow tickle, and just 100km from Gander's airport, Twillingate gained road access in the 1970s. After the cod fishery collapsed in the 1990s, the town began to reinvent itself. Locals transformed old footpaths – once used to reach now-abandoned communities or favourite berry-picking patches – into hiking trails, launched iceberg tours and started businesses like Great Auk Winery, which uses iceberg water in its products. Drawn to the now-famous town, Evan and I continued our daily scan of iceberg-tracking sites. Even though the icebergs drifted stubbornly west, locals helped us build a very Newfoundland bucket list. We were directed to puffin and whale lookouts, tipped off about the perfect fog-free window for visiting the lighthouse, told where to buy fresh-caught lobster, sent to see several root cellars and urged to visit the Beothuk Interpretation Centre to learn about the tragic demise of the Indigenous Beothuk people. On the hiking trails, we reflected on the empty outports and watched for untracked icebergs. "They've given people a reason to come home," an employee at Great Auk Winery told us as we sampled a flight of wines. The bakeapple iceberg wine – infused with golden-orange berries handpicked from nearby bogs – offered a honeyed apricot note. Blended with harvested iceberg water, it showcased how seafaring traditions are being reimagined. We bought a bottle; even if we didn't spot one of the elusive giants, we could still savour the taste of 50,000-year-old water. In a typical year, 700 to 800 icebergs drift through Iceberg Alley; some years, none appear at all. I had nearly given up when I glimpsed my first one at Red Bay. Floating offshore from Expedition 51, the glittering hulk told the story of a snowflake's improbable journey from cloud to glacier to sea to tourist attraction. It had taken thousands of years to get here – but without the new highway, I wouldn't have seen it at all. -- For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
04-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Tweed Valley osprey love triangle chicks fail to survive
The four chicks which hatched as part of a rare osprey love triangle in the Borders have and Land Scotland (FLS) had captured the unusual arrangement on cameras set up as part of the Tweed Valley Osprey Project (TVOP) at Glentress near female birds and one male had been breeding in what initially appeared to be a "tolerant" after the male bird left the nest, the two females struggled to provide enough food for the chicks which ultimately failed to survive. The unusual breeding situation was revealed last month when the relationship between the birds was "looking good".They worked together to incubate the four eggs in the nest and the chicks began to hatch on 28 by that stage the male bird - named Newboy - had abandoned the nest, leaving the two females - F2 and Mrs O - to provide for the co-ordinator Diane Bennett said that process had started out quite well. "It was with huge relief to everyone on the project when F2 brought a half-eaten fish back to the nest and both females began to feed the tiny chicks together," she said."It was a unique moment to witness and it was looking hopeful that they would figure out a feeding strategy to look after their young between them."However, no further fish were brought to the nest over Friday and Saturday."The chicks were begging for food, Mrs O went into her instinctive role to nurture her young, protect them and to stay with them," Diane Bennett said."This left F2 to go against her natural instinct to do the same as Mrs O and to become the hunter and provider instead, which ordinarily is the role of the male bird in the osprey breeding cycle."F2 was struggling to fulfil this role, Newboy never returned and Mrs O was locked into her motherhood mode." She said that F2 did eventually return on Monday with a "small portion of half-eaten fish" but Mrs O was "so ravenous" that she had eaten it, leaving none for the Tuesday, when Mrs O stood away from the brood, it was clear that three of the young had died and one was still "begging to be fed".F2 did eventually bring some fish to the nest but by that time the remaining chick had also "succumbed to starvation and passed away"."Everyone is so heartbroken that the female ospreys have not managed to make this situation work," said Diane Bennett."This has been very upsetting and sad to watch this family drama turn to tragedy and brings home just how vulnerable and fragile the whole breeding cycle can be for ospreys."For their very brief lives they touched many hearts of people who dearly wanted them to survive."However, she said it was "not all doom and gloom" in the Tweed Valley as other birds that had fledged from the area had been spotted far have been reported on the Isle of Anglesey, in North Yorkshire and the Usk Valley in Wales.
BBC News
31-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Kielder Forest's first osprey chicks of the year hatch
The first osprey chicks of the year have hatched at one of their most important sites in chicks hatched at Kielder Forest, in Northumberland, earlier this week despite what were described as "less than ideal" conditions with wind and year saw the ospreys' earliest recorded return to the national park from sub-Saharan Africa with a sighting on 21 March - three days ahead of the previous first led to hopes of an improved breeding season after 12 chicks failed to fledge last year. The park is awaiting possible further hatchings this a Facebook post announcing the new arrivals, it said: "Conditions have been less than ideal here, with wind and rain causing a few wobbles but we're hopeful for a few more hatching over the weekend."There have been some excellent parenting skills on show and, with a steady diet of Kielder's rainbow trout, the chicks will grow quickly."Once found throughout the UK, wild ospreys were persecuted and the species became extinct in England in 1847 and in Scotland in in 2009 ospreys were born for the first time in Northumberland in more than 200 years, with more than 120 successfully fledging since are now approximately 350 breeding pairs in the UK, mostly in Scotland, but numbers in England and Wales have been slowly increasing. Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
