azwhales
Today, the weather and the sea conditions were still challenging, so we had lots of fun with our catamaran Cetus and enjoyed the most out of the beautiful sea, always taking security as a priority.
Our lookout spotted a pod of bottlenose dolphins, so we travelled east up to this area and found a big group with lots of juveniles and calfs. We estimated around 80 individuals. They were pretty active today, travelling with average speed right at the front of our boat, letting us see them quite well. As they are so curious, we think that they could also see us pretty well.
Some of the juveniles were jumping out of the water and splashing their body against the surface! We cannot be 100% sure of the reasons for this behavior but we may understand it as a way for communication (through the sound produced by the splash) in between the animals of the same pod. It might also be to get off some ectoparasites that may be attached to their skins and also can be used when they need to scare and gather fishes all together in a bait ball!
As they stayed so close to the boat, we used our hydrophone, connected to the speakers distributed all along the boat. It allowed us to listen to some of the various types of sounds that these dolphins may produce! We heard the clicks used for echolocation when they were looking for food and also heard their whistling that is mostly used as another way of communication between them. At this time, they were taking deeper dives together, maybe to scare the fishes up to near the surface of the water, making the task of feeding easier for them and harder for the little fishes!
On the way back, we were still able to spot a great skua flying in the sky above our heads, which is a species not so common to see above our waters!
azwhales
Equipa de Biólogos da Futurismo
Sandrina Rodrigues
