An escaping dolphin after an orca attack and successful photographs (6 photos)

Photographer Christopher Swann was incredibly lucky. While filming marine life off the coast of Mexico's Baja California, he witnessed an incredible spectacle - an orca attack on a bottlenose dolphin and its miraculous rescue. Fortunately, the photographer did not lose his composure and managed to capture everything that happened on camera. Looking at these pictures, it’s simply impossible to believe that these are not computer graphics!

The killer whale surfaced from the depths with the swiftness of a rocket to attack a passing dolphin, but missed by literally a few centimeters. Animal photographer Christopher Swann, who was photographing marine life off the coast of Mexico's Baja California, became an accidental witness to this picture. “I was filming killer whales,” he says. “When they started to get ready to hunt, I stopped the boat and just looked at them: they were too fast for me to chase them.”

A powerful blow from a missed killer whale sent the dolphin into real flight: it soared high into the air, like the predator itself. After which both animals went back under water. “It was a very tense moment,” says Swann. “The killer whale flew about five meters out of the water, very close to us - I was afraid that it would fall right on the boat.”

The photographer managed to capture in this frame the incredible power of a killer whale that flew several meters above the water. The killer whale has not yet given up hope of catching the bottlenose dolphin. Or maybe she was just playing? According to Swann, who has photographed orcas extensively, they sometimes play with their prey. "Sometimes they actually play with the victims. I've seen killer whales attack more than once, and I know that they can kill the animal much faster," he said.

But this time the dolphin was lucky. By the time the killer whale plopped into the water, he was already under water and running away at full speed. “We watched the killer whales hunt for about an hour and a half,” says Swann. “I didn’t see the killer whale grab the dolphin - they were both moving too fast.”

This time the killer whale failed to catch its prey. After an incredible flight, the dolphin managed to quickly find its bearings and escape. The photographer was also lucky - such unique shots are rarely captured!