Rare southern right whale spouts love heart-shaped bubbles, captured by local Albany photographer

A rare image of a southern right whale blowing a love heart is one among many highlights of this year’s whale season on WA’s south coast.

Albany local and hobby photographer Deborah Hallows was at Cheynes Beach on July 14 when she captured the “incredible” moment.

Ms Hallows — who shares photos of her travels on the Instagram account southernexposures.dh, which she shares with her partner Ash — said she’d never seen anything like it before.

“The whale was just relaxing on the ocean floor just behind the waves, so quite close to the beach really,” she said.

“As I was taking some photos waiting for it to surface, it just released a big burst of bubbles and created this amazing bubble ring.

“I managed to get four consecutive photos of it happening and the third photo had the heart shape in it.”

Ms Hallows said the area was filled with humpback and southern right whales on the day and she even spotted two southern right calves, one of which was white.

“There were so many whales, both humpbacks and southern rights,” she said.

“The humpbacks were putting on a show further out in the bay, but the southern rights were just chilling to the east close to the shore.”

Cheynes Beach Caravan Park co-owner Joanne Marsh said the whale-watching season had been “phenomenal” since they arrived in the area in May.

“Cheynes Beach is so easily accessible to see the whales, it’s the best place — you can even just sit in your car and see the whales, you don’t even need to get out,” she said.

“They’re so close you can almost touch them.”

Ms Marsh said Cheynes Beach had seen double breaches, large groups of whales together, and many white southern right whale calves over the 2024 whale watching season.

“We’re getting some people coming in and saying they’ve seen over 50 whales, and other people will say they’ve only seen one,” she said.

“On a good day when the weather is perfect, you’ll see the whales everywhere.

“You see double breaches happen and there’s been a number of baby white whales that turn darker as they get older.”