6 different species in Pico, including northern bottlenose whale!

Today our trips were amazing, we sighted a bunch of new things! We saw the first big sperm whale male of the season, he was solitary and resting at the surface, but just before we left, he started to do some impressive lob tailing.

We could also see twice Sowerby’s beaked whales, characteristic for their long beak, breaching backward at the surface, a very difficult behavior to see since beaked whales are very shy with boats.

We sighted the active Atlantic spotted dolphin two times, the first one they were feeding and the second one they came closer to our boat and were more interested in us, some of them jumping close to the boat and even splashing to our clients.

Pilot whales, otherwise, showed us a totally different behavior, we encountered a group that was logging at the surface, with big males and some calves clinging to their mothers.

Then, the highlight of the day, we spotted some beaked whales, and when we were approaching, we realized they were Northern bottlenose whale, the first time they are seen early this season what a joy to live this very unique encounter!! Northern bottlenose whale are the largest beaked whales we can see in the Azores and encounters are very rare. Usually, they appear in late July and August, but this year we saw them for the first time way earlier.

To complete the day, a group of Risso’s dolphins integrated by females, calves, and we could also identify one newborn! Quite rare to see since we usually sight groups of males. They were calm, intercalating short dives with being at the surface, one of the calves also delighted us with continued lob-tailing. What a nice whale watching day!