How wonderful. That doesn’t happen every day, but today we were really spoiled. The encounter with the oceanic kindergarten of the Short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) was something very special!
One of the important subgroups in a dolphin school is the group with females and their calves also called kindergarten. Wherever people work hand in hand, these females of the kindergarten group work pectoral fin in pectoral fin, so to speak. Two adult females looked after the young while some mothers were hopefully successful in the hunt. On the surface of the sea, the waiting animals were very, very open-minded. Curious, they kept coming back to our traditional fishing boat, Ribeira Brava. This encounter was spectacular, a real great moment, a star hour.
The large school of Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), however, behaved distant. In their typical surface behavior of moving quickly through the sea just below the surface of the water, they cleverly kept their distance.
The two Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) were also quickly submerged. And for my interested guests, this is the wonderful documentary “Turtle, the incredible journey”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MfX2U5as_E
By Fatima Kutzschbach
Sightings of the day
Ribeira Brava
10.00 Short-finned pilot whales, Striped dolphins, Loggerhead turtles
Stenella
10.30 Atlantic spotted dolphins, Short-finned pilot whales, Striped dolphins