Bathers at Valle Niza beach, in Vélez-Málaga, enjoyed the visit of two dolphins swimming very close to the shore this morning. The sighting was recorded by one of the holidaymakers.
The beach of Valle Niza, in Vélez-Málaga, offered an unusual sight this morning: two dolphins swam for a good while just a few metres from the shore, to the astonished gaze of the bathers. The sighting occurred during a leisurely day and was captured in a video shared by one of the holidaymakers with SUR.
According to witnesses, the cetaceans appeared around 12:00 PM and remained in the area for approximately 20 minutes, delighting those on the sand as well as those in the water. The animals swam freely, very close to the coastline, and were received as a pleasant surprise.
The presence of dolphins in this corner of the Axarquía coast is not entirely exceptional. The waiters at chiringuito El Paraíso explained that it is common for them to approach the area where bathers stand, although not always with a happy ending: last summer, one specimen nearly beached itself and had to be helped back to deeper waters.
After the spectacle, the two dolphins headed towards deeper waters, disappearing into the blue of the Mediterranean. Although determining the exact species from the images is complicated, it is most likely that they were bottlenose dolphins or common dolphins, the two species most frequently seen in Axarquía and along the rest of the Málaga coast.
The bottlenose dolphin is a robust animal, uniformly grey, darker on the back and whitish on the belly, typically measuring between 2.5 and 3.5 metres, and tends to approach the beach line. It is also possible that they could have been striped dolphins, a species with more pelagic habits that occasionally ventures in pairs or small groups towards the coast in pursuit of schools of fish.
Bathers who witnessed the scene wanted to immortalise the moment with their phones, while others preferred to follow the spectacle from the water. Valle Niza beach, one of the quietest along the Vélez coastline, thus experienced a day that many will remember for a long time.
You may also like
