Two dolphins delight bathers on eastern Costa del Sol beach

People sunbathing on the beach stood up to get a better view of the dolphins as they swam very close to the shore. Some chose to watch the spectacle from the water, as they were in the middle of a swim when the animals appeared, while others filmed the scene on their mobile phones to capture the moment.

The animals then headed out into deeper waters. According to staff at the El Paraíso beach bar, it is quite common for dolphins to approach the area even with people in the water, sometimes with consequences for the animals: last summer, one of them had to be helped back out to deeper water because it nearly become stranded, one of the waiters told SUR.

It is difficult to identify the exact species from the images. However, they are most likely bottlenose dolphins or common dolphins, which are the two species most frequently sighted along the Costa del Sol. The bottlenose dolphin is a robust animal, uniformly grey in colour — darker on the back and whitish on the belly and usually measures between 2.5 and 3.5 metres and likes to swim close to the shoreline. They might have been striped dolphins, a species that prefers open waters, although they occasionally venture towards the coast in pairs or small groups while chasing schools of fish.