\u201cTo say the least it was very wild, very wild,\u201d Mr Forrest said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Forrest said the encounter initially appeared no different from any other day on the annual humpback whale migration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like every other day on the humpback highway, but there was one whale sitting behind the shallows cruising around and it was unusual because she was consistently so slow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden I saw this red plumage. I had no idea what it was because red is such a rare colour in the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like such a contrast \u2013 this blue and red \u2013 it was really striking.\u201d<\/p>\n
His first thought was that the whale had been attacked by a predator, but moments later, he realised he was witnessing something extraordinary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt relief when I saw this white figure shooting up to the surface and I realised it was a calf taking its first breath,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The remarkable footage is now expected to be analysed by whale experts, who hope it will provide valuable new insights into the maternal behaviour of humpback whales.<\/p>\n
Because humpback whale births are so rarely witnessed in the wild, scientists believe the vision could contribute to a better understanding of the species\u2019 breeding and calving behaviour.<\/p>\n
Mr Forrest, who recently graduated from film school, hopes the extraordinary encounter is the beginning of a career in wildlife photography and filmmaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel lucky to have had this wildlife encounter and if I could have told my younger self, I could have only dreamed of aspirations like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope I can keep contributing to science studies and assist with storytelling by making these films.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remarkable footage has attracted worldwide attention and could become an important scientific record of one of nature\u2019s rarest events.<\/p>\n
Photo: Wildlife photographer Alexander Forrest has described as \u201cpretty wild\u201d the moment he filmed what experts believe is one of the few recorded humpback whale births ever captured on camera off Kingscliff. (supplied by Alexander Forrest)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTo say the least it was very wild, very wild,\u201d Mr Forrest said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[243368,243369,243370,61,60,22258,1663,243371,82,243372,243373,243374,263,54270],"class_list":["post-576822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-alexander-forrest","tag-humpback-migration","tag-humpback-whale-birth","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kingscliff","tag-marine-life","tag-nsw-coast","tag-science","tag-whale-calf","tag-whale-footage","tag-whale-photography","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}