Surfin' bird! Seagull lands on a whale's back for a quick breather before it dives back below the waves in stunning footage

 A photographer captured the moment a seagull landed on the back of a whale.

Leandro Hihn, 30, filmed the amazing video in Puerto Piramides, Argentina, in August 2021.

In Hihn's video, a seagull is seen landing on the back of a Southern Right Whale and hitching a brief ride on top of the huge animal.

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The seagull was tracking the Southern Right Whale as it swam off the Argentinian coast 

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The seagull narrowly avoided getting hit by a stream of water from the whale's blowhole 

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The seagull remained on the whale's back for several seconds before the mammal sank back under the waves 

The seagull can see the large whale approaching the surface for a breath of air. 

When the giant mammal breaches the surface, it fires water out of its blowhole, almost hitting the lurking seagull. 

The gull takes the opportunity presented by the whale to land on its back. 

Unfortunately for the seagull, having refilled its lungs with air, the whale sank gracefully below the surface. 

The video went viral online with thousands of views.

One user commented on the video, saying: 'That's beautiful.' 

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The seagull was trying to get a free surf from the massive whale late last month 

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Southern right whales measure up to 56 feet (17m) long for a fully-grown female or 49 feet (15m) for a male and can weigh up to 198,000lbs (90,000kg; 90 tonnes)

SOUTHERN RIGHT WHALES WERE ALMOST HUNTED TO EXTINCTION

The southern right whale is a species of baleen whale which was once hunted to the brink of extinction by humans.

Hunting of the ocean giants was banned in 1935 but illegal Russian whaling operations continued until the late 1970s.

Southern right whales are huge, measuring up to 56 feet (17m) long for a fully-grown female or 49 feet (15m) for a male.

They can weigh up to 198,000lbs (90,000kg; 90 tonnes).

The whales are slow swimmers and naturally full of blubber, oil, meat and baleen (whalebone), all of which combined to make them prime targets for whalers.

Southern right whales live all over the southern hemisphere of the Earth and migrate every year to warmer waters to breed, often off the coast of South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Their bodies are mostly black with patches of white on their underbelly and chin, and they lift their huge tails out of the water when starting to dive beneath the surface.

Source: Whale and Dolphin Conservation