Wonderful wildlife captured in pictures

An avid nature photographer snapped this shot of a female dolphin with her newborn calf at Cheyne Beach last weekend.

See more of her wonderful wildlife pictures here

Albany photographer Raeline Smith witnessed a small pod of dolphins swim into the bay last Saturday morning, where female ‘midwife’ dolphins assisted the mother with her delivery over three or four hours.

She said the sight was not uncommon along Albany’s coastline at the advent of spring.

“Groups of dolphins will come in and the males seem to separate from the females who come into the corner and hang around for a few hours until the mother has her calf,” she said.

“On Saturday there were only about four or five adults but the other year there were about 40 in the corner.

“When the female is giving birth, you can see her slap her tail above the water at increasing intervals until the calf is born … they swim up and down until the calf is swimming strongly enough, then they leave.”

“I have seen them lift a newborn calf out of the water to breathe until it is capable of breathing for itself before.”

Ms Smith said she has been monitoring the migration of southern right whales through her lens for years, tracking how often they calf and trying to identify individuals, and has taken other spectacular shots of wildlife in the Great Southern.

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