azwhales
Our morning started off with sperm whales! The first one went for a very quick dive so we continued to another group of 3 individuals.
This group consisted of 2 adults and a calf/juvenile. What we encountered here was quite amazing. They were resting and socializing at the surface; rolling, showing their fluke, rubbing against each other etc.
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| Photo by Victor Ojeda |
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| Photo by Victor Ojeda |
At some point they even turned towards us, swimming upside down, and letting us see the jaw! We were all in awe about the sighting we had today. Then we continued to the pod of spotted dolphins. They were surface active and leaping next to the boat. Well the pictures say it all, it was an incredible morning!
In the afternoon we got to see our four residente species! We started with a very small group of common dolphins but they were quite curious with the boat and playing with the waves.
After we saw an interaction between two different species, sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins!
Honestly it is very hard to explain what was going on in that moment, we were able to see splashes of bottlenose dolphins, blows of sperm whales, the both species touching each other, tails of sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins in the air at the same time, it was a crazy moment for us!
The group of sperm whales was the same one from the morning and one of the individuals is a very known sperm whale here in the Azores. It is called Orca (even though it is a sperm whale) and the first time we saw her was in 2003 and it is part of the red group in our catalog of sperm whales.
It was time to leave all this craziness to search for our fourth residente species, Risso’s dolphins.
Unfortunately they were not very receptive towards us but we still got to see some very white individuals.
Even for the crew of the boats, got to see all this animals almost every day, it was a very special day!
azwhales
Futurismo Biologists Team
Sandrina Rodrigues
