PODS of dolphins delighted those out on the waters of Poole Bay on Monday evening.

The playful marine creatures numbered around nine and were spotted near Old Harry Rocks in Studland Bay.

After a successful day out fishing on Silver Spray, Bournemouth angler David Faulkner, who took these photographs, was delighted to be escorted by the dolphins.

“It was a great sight to see them all around the boat,” he said.

“We weren’t expecting it. It was a perfect end to the day.”

They had been almost over to Cherbourg and he had caught six pollock and his first bass of the year. He said there were sprats and mackerel around and the dolphins may have been attracted by them.

Sam Cumming, skipper of the fishing catamaran, said over the past year dolphins had become an increasingly common sight.

“They were quite close in,” he said.

“There were a couple of different pods, about eight or nine of them. Over the last year we have seen more and more.”

He said that last year he was out wreck fishing 40 miles off the coast and filmed a pod of 40 dolphins swimming with the boat.

“I used to see them two or three times a year,” said Sam.

“Over the last year I must have seen them one or two times a month.”

He said: “I slowed down and went around in a big circle and they stayed with us for a minute and then moved off.

“They swim in between the hulls of the catamaran and leap out of the water at the front or play in the wash at the back,” he said.

He said if they didn’t want to play he left them alone, unlike some of the leisure craft which

buzzed around them trying to get them to respond.

“They seem to like the boat, for whatever reason.”

In a seperate sighting, this video of dolphins on the bow of the RNLI lifeboat in Swanage was uploaded to YouTube on Monday.

Do you have pictures? Email them to us at newsdesk@bournemouthecho.co.uk.