Bertie Gregory’s newest adventure takes him to the Atlantic Ocean for ‘Dolphins Up Close with Bertie Gregory’

In “Dolphins Up Close with Bertie Gregory,” the National Geographic explorer looks to the camera and says, “Any day you see a dolphin is a good day.”

And that was Gregory’s main objective for his newest special, to watch dolphins in their natural habitat as migrating predators. He told On The Red Carpet that the Azores, a remote island chain in the Atlantic Ocean, was the perfect place.

“We really wanted to show just how the dolphins use this amazing intelligence and teamwork and cooperation to hunt in the most spectacular way. And the Azores is a place that is brilliant for dolphins, and it is just spectacular,” he said.

“Dolphins are in pop culture… people are familiar with them. But when they think of a dolphin, they probably think of a cute smiley animal, good at jumping out of the water,” Gregory said. “What they don’t often talk about is… they can live in these massive groups, I’m talking thousands. And their whole lives are on the move and the reason they’re on the move is because they’re going to look for food and they are these incredible predators.”

Gregory and his team spent five weeks on the water in the hopes of filming what’s called a “bait ball,” a dense shoal of fish for dolphins and other predators to feed on. And he said the sights they saw were pretty phenomenal!

“Probably the coolest thing was actually the encounter with the false killer whales. They’re jet black. They have this really kind of sinister mouthful of teeth, they have a kind of creepy smile they like to give you as they swim past and they were hunting tuna,” he said.

Getting those perfect shots were not quite as easy as the team had hoped.

“Wildlife filmmakers are often sort of described as the most patient people on earth. I am definitely not patient but what I am is passionate and persistent,” Gregory explained. “We would drop in and out of the water 40 times in a day, film absolutely nothing 39 of those times. And then one dive for five minutes, it all works.”

“Dolphins Up Close with Bertie Gregory” premieres tonight on National Geographic and will stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of National Geographic, Hulu and this ABC station.