Feeding time for bottlenose dolphins and resting time for sperm whales

Today in Pico island, we started the day with some foraging dolphins. Shearwaters were flying and scanning through the Ocean’s surface in all our surroundings, from the moment we left the harbour.

The sea seemed to be filled with fish close to the surface, but it was just when we got close to a pod of common dolphins that this smell of fish really increased. Cory’s shearwaters were in a feeding frenzy together with the common dolphins, flying over them as they were quickly chasing the fish and, in every opportunity, they would dive to catch their luck out of the fish bait.

Southwards from us was a pod of bottlenose dolphins. All the pod seemed to be tightly together in the same area. They were travelling West against the waves and as we arrived close to the pod, they received us with their usual behaviour of bow riding our zodiac enabling us to navigate along them for a while.

Eventually our lookout spotted a group of sperm whales. They were heading in the same direction as the dolphins, spending their resting time at the surface together. We had the opportunity to observe 4 adult females resting at surface by the side of each other and two others further away also resting together.

Sperm whales are social animals. The females stay and live in the same group they were born in and many times, as they are resting at surface in-between their deep foraging dives, they stay close to each other. It is marvellous when all of them dive into the deep Ocean at the same time, letting us watch their fluke sequence! In between the adult females, we could observe for a while a calf that was also in this group.