A pod of playful humpback whales performed for locals and tourists at Byron Bay on Sunday morning.
Local Geoff Bensley caught the ocean giants on camera shortly after 9am as they frolicked about in the water several hundred metres off Main Beach in the centre of town.
"They hung around and they kept going back towards the dive boat and flapping and jumping," he said.
"They were going crazy out there."
Byron Bay, a popular tourist destination on the NSW north coast, is also a well-known whale watching spot.
Mr Bensley said he spied the whales when he went for his morning swim. It was the first whales he had seen in Byron during this season's migration south, but others had spotted them earlier, he said.
Humpbacks are generally seen from the east Australian coast from September to November, swimming back towards the Southern Ocean after spending the winter months in warmer waters to mate and give birth.
