azwhales
Today we have a group of sperm whales near São Miguel island. In the morning we encountered several individuals from the group. The passengers aboard our smaller boats were lucky to see a sperm whale breaching several times near their boats. Those on our catamaran were just arriving as the show was ending, but we managed to see some jumps from a distance. The group was socialising so we were able to see them at the surface for some time and some of the individuals became curious towards our catamaran. During the morning we also encountered common dolphins to complete the tour. Their were many babies in the group and the majority of the common dolphins were feeding together with Cory’s shearwaters that were always flying above the group. And our swimming boat swam with both common dolphins and Atlantic spotted dolphins in the morning and the afternoon.
In the afternoon we had brilliant encounters with two resident dolphin species: common and bottlenose dolphins. Leaving the harbour we were greeted by a pod of over 600 common dolphins including many calves. We then turned our attention to the sperm whales we sighted earlier this morning but unfortunately we were unable to locate them due to poor visibility. We finished the day with a large group of bottlenose dolphins, approximately 50 individuals, that showed off their acrobatic abilities.
Photos from the morning:
Sperm whales – 2 adults with a calf between them
Sperm whale calf surfacing next to an adult
Two sperm whales starting a deep dive
Common tern on a floating chest that we later picked up
Another sperm whale
Common dolphin
Photos from the afternoon:
Beautifully coloured common dolphins
Juvenile common dolphin having fun
Common dolphins everywhere!
Watching common dolphins from the top deck of our catamaran
Bottlenose dolphins
azwhales
Equipa de Biólogos da Futurismo
Sandrina Rodrigues
