A wildlife photographer has captured footage of a humpback whale underwater off the coast of Scotland.

The film, which was taken in late December by expert snappers and ecologists Richard Shucksmith and Brydon Thomason, shows the mammal in the waters around Shetland.

It is thought this could be the first time footage of humpbacks underwater has been shot in the UK.

Dr Shucksmith said he was amazed to be able to capture the images in Scotland.

"We're travelling up to Norway to work with humpback and killer whales," he said.

"People travel to Tonga to do the same and all these places round the world to see humpbacks. I never in my wildest dreams thought I be doing that off the coast of Shetland."

A bricklayer by trade, he retrained as an ecologist and undertook a PhD in Marine Biology in the 1990s, moving up to Shetland eight years ago.

Since then he and Mr Thomason have been documenting and highlighting the wildlife on and around the islands.

"I was seeing all these amazing things around me and studying all these amazing underwater animals and interactions, so I started using the camera to document it and show people what I was seeing.

"I wanted to show people what's going on under the sea."

In wildlife terms, 2016 has been a special year on Shetland. The humpback whale sightings were accompanied by regular sightings of killer whales.

Increased sightings of huge creatures can mean a number of things.

"It may be a reflection of the humpback whale population recovering from when they used to be hunted," says Dr Shucksmith.

"Their reproduction rate is quite slow so it takes quite a long time for an animal like that to recover to large numbers."

Dr Shucksmith and his team travelled out to the area where the whales were, and donned snorkelling gear to get up close and personal with the 30-tonne beasts.

The footage was better than they could have imagined.

"They came towards us and right up to me, and once they were past turned round and had a look," he explains.

"They were three our four metres below me, and one of the whales turned on its side and eyeballed me from underneath.

"At that point I was thinking, 'this is crazy'. To be snorkelling with humpbacks and getting them to check you out in my own backyard off Shetland was amazing."

Dr Richard Shucksmith is an ecologist and wildlife photographer who runs Shetland Photo Tours. Brydon Thomason is a native Shetlander and wildlife expert who runs Shetland Nature.