![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/aec5ac026ada17bed0af71405e864faf.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nEarly-morning kayakers have been treated to the rare sight of a pod of dolphins frolicking in Sydney Harbour west of the bridge.<\/p>\n
About 10 dolphins were seen in waters off Birchgrove by a kayak tour early this morning.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never encountered a dolphin that side of the bridge,” Tim Griffiths, who runs Cockatoo Kayak Tours, said.<\/p>\n
“That is a very unusual to have a pod that far up the harbour.”<\/p>\n
He said the pod was swimming up the Parramatta River towards Cockatoo Island when he spotted it.<\/p>\n
Another kayak tour spotted dolphins off Blues Point in the harbour this morning.<\/p>\n
Macquarie University marine scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta said the animals, which were more frequently reported east of the bridge, had likely come into the harbour to find food.<\/p>\n
“It’s a rare sighting to see the dolphins going past the bridge,” Dr Pirotta said.<\/p>\n
“The presence of dolphins and other marine creatures in our harbour highlights our local biodiversity by also the marine environment’s health.”<\/p>\n
“They’re very much serving as a reminder of the environmental conditions at present.”<\/p>\n
She said dolphins had previously been reported as far up the Parramatta River at Breakfast Point.<\/p>\n
Citizen science project trying to confirm repeat visitors<\/p>\n
Dr Pirotta runs the citizen science project Wild Sydney Harbour, which encourages Sydneysiders to report sightings of marine animals like seals, dolphins and whales using social media.<\/p>\n
She said that, with help from the Botany Bay-based Gamay Rangers, they had identified that the same dolphin had revisited Sydney’s waterways four years apart.<\/p>\n
She said the double sighting led her to believe the dolphins may be returning visitors.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Contributors to the Wild Sydney Harbour project spotted a humpback whale last year. (Supplied: Dr Vanessa Pirotta)<\/p>\n
“I’m assuming that they’re residents, or at least they love the Sydney surrounds.<\/p>\n
“Maybe the animals enjoy this area.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early-morning kayakers have been treated to the rare sight of a pod of dolphins frolicking in Sydney Harbour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,476095,476094,476096,128,338],"class_list":["post-908047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dolphin-pod-sydney","tag-dolphins-sydney-harbour","tag-harbour-bridge-dolphins","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}