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Dolphins catch a wave

Dolphins at play off Esperance.

It was a crystal clear day in Esperance when filmmaker David Riggs decided to send his quadcopter over the Southern Coast town's beautiful beaches.

The air was still, the sky was cloudless and the ocean was like a turquoise millpond.

Riggs seized the opportunity on that still winter's day to launch the device, which has four rotors powered by an electrical motor and fitted with a camera.

He was hoping to film sharks which may be following whales, which usually begin their migration along WA's south coast this month.

The quadcopter camera captured captivating vision of bottlenose dolphins surfing at Observatory beach.

"The whole region was lit up. The cold fronts had come through and it had calmed down again," he said. "There were probably a total of 150 bottlenose dolphins in the area."

Riggs also filmed a great white shark, estimated to be 4.5m long, cruising close to the shore in Twilight Cove and prompting a group of 30 surfers to quickly leave the water.

The Esperance-based nature documentary maker was also behind the discovery of what is believed to have the biggest seasonal aggregation of killer whales in the southern hemisphere.

The West Australian revealed the size of the orca aggregation, 70km off the coast of Bremer Bay, and the variety of other marine life during the first expeditions to document the phenomenon earlier this year.

Riggs was led to the killer whale aggregation after the disappearance of a tagged 3m great white shark near the spot where the orcas appear to aggregate annually.

The mystery of what killed the great white shark was the subject of an ABC documentary late last year, which has now been adapted for the US and will air on nature channel Smithsonian on June 25.

A promotional clip of the documentary had had more than five million views in five days yesterday.