THE RARE sight of a killer whale attacking a dolphin and her pup has appeared all over the world, after a Tavistock wildlife photographer captured it on camera during a nature tour in New Zealand.

Tommy Hatwell, 27, had been working for company Explore Images when he took the pictures, believed to be the first of their kind anywhere in the world.

Tommy, whose job it is to take wildlife and tourist shots on boat tours around the Bay of Islands, kept snapping as he saw a female killer whale attack a pseudo orca, or false killer whale, eventually tossing her into the air and snapping her back.

'The chances of seeing that are about one in a million,' said Tommy, who has been working for Explore Images for three months.

Dolphins are a common site and on this day there were plenty — but something else was brewing.

'I was hanging out the hatch at the front of the boat and had prime position for getting the shots,' said Tommy.

'The whales that came into the bay were more aggressive than normal and and we knew there was something going on.

'We turned our engines off and so did the boats behind us.

'From about 300 metres away, I saw this pseudo orca in a panic charge and porpoising. It was coming superfast towards us.'

The boat was just 100m away when the attack occurred. Tommy continued: 'One of the killer whales singled out a pseudo orca from a group of about 15 and she had a pup with her. 'She played with the mother before flicking her several metres into the air and breaking its back on her nose. It all happened within seconds and I just kept shooting.

'I went straight to the laptop and downloaded the pictures onto memory sticks because there was no way I was going to lose these.

'The next day the pictures made the front page of the New Zealand Herald, which is the main paper in New Zealand, and The Sydney Morning Herald, and more followed like the Daily Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday in the UK.'

Tommy, a former Tavistock College student, said it was weird that one day he was photographing lots of 'crazy dolphins' — and the next, he was seeing his photo all over the national media.

'It's great and it's given me a huge amount of confidence,' he said.

'I am basically doing the job I do every day but on this day something very rare happened and I was there to capture it.'

But modest Tommy said he still felt a bit embarrassed when people kept coming up to him to say what a great picture it was.

'I keep getting comments on Facebook and apparently they played an audio from a news report at Jack Chams in Tavistock where I worked for a year.'

Tommy has been travelling since 2005 but his main work has been as a professional kayaker, taking him to countries like France, Africa, Morocco and Canada.

He has also worked as a videographer.

'I enjoy making videos and taking pictures but it is all self taught.

'Photography has a great amount of technical skill involved, but positioning yourself and to have the knowledge of the subject you are capturing is a massive importance to the outcome of the images,' he said. 

Tommy is off to Wellington for the winter and aims to keep travelling, kayaking and taking pictures — but life is still an adventure and he has no urge to settle down: 'I always have a camera with me so you never know what I might see next,' he said.