{"id":1476,"date":"2014-08-14T16:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T16:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/14\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/"},"modified":"2019-11-22T22:32:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T22:32:28","slug":"azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/","title":{"rendered":"Azores marine life: whales, dolphins, mantas, turtles a marlin and more!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nToday we had it all! The best of the summer in the Azores. It was another perfect calm day in which the ocean is crystal clear and flat like a lake. In the morning we encountered Atlantic spotted dolphins, common dolphins and sperm whales<\/a>. We got to see and photograph some lovely tails of the sperm whales and from seeing this tails we think it is a group we recognise. Later we will compare the tail photos to our catalogue to see if we have any matches. During this tour we also encountered 4 mantas at the surface, the first of many encountered today…<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn the afternoon we had many dolphin groups near Ponta Delgada. Our boats went in different directions and all of us encountered common dolphins<\/a>, bottlenose dolphins<\/a> and Atlantic spotted dolphins<\/a>. The perfect sea made our encounters really great, as we could see the dolphins gliding perfectly beneath the surface. From our larger boat “Song of Whales” we were pleasantly surprised by a very active group of about 200 common dolphins who were all travelling quickly in unison. They were leaping over the surface in a behaviour we call “running”. The spotted dolphins were not so interested in us, but the bottlenose dolphins were very curious and great to watch. As is typical in the summer time we also got to see many tiny babies of all species. After our dolphin encounters one of our swimming boats also encountered some mantas at the surface. 8 of them together in fact! From the colouration they looked to be sicklefin devil rays<\/a>, which can grow to more than 3 m in width, wingtip to wingtip. We also encountered several loggerhead turtles<\/a> throughout the day, and on our way back in on Song of Whales our skipper also glimpsed a leatherback turtle<\/a> at the surface.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nDuring our third late afternoon tour we once again had some great dolphin encounters. We also encountered a manta on this tour (today’s manta encounters is a new record!) and we even spotted a blue marlin<\/a>. The Azores is definitely one of the world’s best places to observe a wide variety of marine life!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPhotos from the morning:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nFirst sperm whale diving<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nSecond sperm whale diving<\/i><\/div>\n

\nPhotos from the early afternoon tour:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nCommon dolphins “running”<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nCommon dolphin<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nA playful common dolphin juvenile jumps next to its mother<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nCommon dolphins with Ponta delgada in the background<\/i><\/div>\n
\n
<\/i><\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nAtlantic spotted dolphin<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nBottlenose dolphin smile<\/i> \ud83d\ude42<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nBottlenose dolphin calf breaking the surface<\/i><\/div>\n
\n
<\/i><\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nAboard “Song of Whales”<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nOne of our dolphin swimming boats<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nEnjoying the ride back to Ponta Delgada<\/i>
\n
<\/i>
\n<\/p>\n
\nPhotos from our later tour:<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/a>
\nCommon dolphin and a Cory’s shearwater – hunting the same fish<\/i>
\n
<\/i>
\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today we had it all! The best of the summer in the Azores. It was another perfect calm…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[9,3,10,4,73,50,238,242],"yoast_head":"\nAzores marine life: whales, dolphins, mantas, turtles a marlin and more! - Azores Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Azores marine life: whales, dolphins, mantas, turtles a marlin and more! - Azores Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today we had it all! The best of the summer in the Azores. It was another perfect calm…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Azores Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-14T16:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-22T22:32:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/IMG_4276.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Azores Whales\",\"description\":\"Azores Whale Watching Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/IMG_4276.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/IMG_4276.png\",\"width\":640,\"height\":427},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/\",\"name\":\"Azores marine life: whales, dolphins, mantas, turtles a marlin and more! - Azores Whales\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-08-14T16:58:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-22T22:32:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c4e17ba0d78db15bcf2fa76aa3fc5ac8\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Home\"}},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"item\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/azores-marine-life-whales-dolphins\/#webpage\"}}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c4e17ba0d78db15bcf2fa76aa3fc5ac8\",\"name\":\"azwhales\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be196191820a99b250b57dc8ecb79906?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be196191820a99b250b57dc8ecb79906?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"azwhales\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11222,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/11222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whalewatchingazores.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}