A whale has been spotted off the Polish coast after several sightings in neighbouring Germany.
"It was a whale, but we cannot say what species it was or whether it is the same individual that was sighted in Germany," a spokesman for the environmental organization WWF Poland told dpa on Sunday.
The marine mammal, several metres long, was spotted on Saturday afternoon near the beach off the resort of Międzyzdroje, according to the PAP news agency.
The Polish Water Rescue Service (WOPR) informed the WWF, which assessed the whale's condition.
The animal may have been more than six metres long, a WWF spokesman was quoted as saying. It was swimming freely and had not become entangled in fishing nets.
A lifeguard boat escorted the whale until late afternoon as it made its way eastwards towards the coastal town of Wisełka, to protect it from watercraft.
The Polish lifeguards posted a video of the marine mammal on social media. It shows the animal's grey-and-white mottled back and blowhole in the water.
At the end of July, a whale turned up in the harbour of Wismar. Two days later, there was another sighting in the Baltic Sea off the Wustrow pier. It was unclear whether it was the same whale.
Earlier this year, a humpback whale nicknamed Timmy became stranded on several occasions on Germany's Baltic coast. A private operation was launched to rescue the animal and tow it back to the North Sea, but it was later found dead on a Danish island.