Drone video captures whales, dolphins and sharks off Hamptons coast

Lifeguard-turned-photographer Sutton Lynch chronicles ocean revival off Hamptons coast | WATCH

Sutton Lynch was given a drone for Christmas allowing him to see humpback whales moving in on their prey from a new angle. Picture: Sutton Lynch

When Sutton Lynch was 12 his parents bought him a camera and he began taking photographs of landscapes.

He lived in the Hamptons where the views were rather dull, in his opinion, particularly during the autumn and winter months when the beaches and towns emptied.

Then all of a sudden, the scenery became more lively. Humpback whales began bursting out of the water, not far from the beach. Dolphins appeared in the waves. Spinner sharks spiralled upwards beneath shoals of fish and shot twirling into the air.

Lynch, by now equipped with a drone, became the chronicler of this extraordinary revival of wild ocean life on the genteel shores of the Hamptons.

It began after the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission imposed limits on the fishing of menhaden, a small fish used to make fish oil for dietary supplements and lipstick, among other things.

That was in 2012. By about 2018, its effect could be seen in the sea, Lynch said.

Working as a lifeguard, he was sitting in a chair on the shore when he spotted a disturbance in the water.

Two humpback whales appeared, about 180m from the shore. “They were lunge feeding on the menhaden. They propel themselves upwards and sideways with their mouths open,” he said. “It’s mindblowing to me still that they are able to swim in such shallow water.”

Limits on catches of menhaden, a source of food for sharks and whales, have revived the Hamptons coastline. Picture: Sutton Lynch

Lynch had been given a drone for Christmas, and in breaks he flew it out over the sea to capture the beauty and majesty of the whales.

Now 23, he is a full-time photographer. Every morning, when the conditions are right, he goes to the beach and works on his phone, editing pictures, sending out his drone when he spies any action in the water.

The pictures of teeming life, including a recent shark feeding frenzy, make him think differently about how he used to swim far from shore as a child. These days, he said, “I stick pretty close to shore”.

The Times