A walker in Aberdeen has managed to capture the magical moment a pod of playful dolphins appeared in the sea close by as he was enjoying a walk at a local beauty spot.
Aberdeen resident Robert Lawrence Snr managed to capture several shots of the beautiful creatures frolicking in the sea around Torry Battery from his vantage point in the car park.
Posting the images online to a local Facebook page, he shared the photos of what appears to be three bottlenose dolphins performing acrobatic stunts.
The animals are regular visitors to the area, with the east coast of Scotland being particularly popular with the intelligent marine species.
It's currently thought that around 200 bottlenose dolphins call the coastal North Sea near Scotland home.
The RSPB recommends Torry Battery, with its panoramic views of the harbour mouth and North Sea, as a great place to view these exciting animals in their natural habitat.
Annual surveys are carried out every summer by the Sea Mammal Research Unit (which has been based at the University of St Andrews since 1996) and the University of Aberdeen.
Recent studies have show an apparent expansion of the dolphin pods territories from the core area in the Moray Firth in the 1990s, where there is a designated Marine Protected Area, south to the Tay Estuary and around Fife.
They've even been spotted as far south as the northeast English coast.
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