20.08.2019 – Parrot beaks, Amber and a rare guest
August 30, 2019
22.08.2019 – Rush hour
September 1, 2019
As different as we all are from each other, so too are the whales, different even more, in size, shape, behaviour, favourite food, and favourite pastime. When a large dolphin like the Bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) shows up to our boat, they can be quite curious, bow-riding a bit, having a look, sometimes diving under for a short while in what seems to us like a game of hide and seek. But the much larger Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni) takes his hide and seek much more serious. Naturally weary of boats and humans, we had to try really hard to even get a glimpse of it this morning, the high blow gives away where it surfaces, but with its sharp aquadynamic form it dives under again and can turn and travel underwater at impressive speeds (30 km/h). Those attentive enough may have seen a dorsal fin and the arch of the whale’s back, but not much more. Most of this massive animal stayed well hidden under water.
It was a strong contrast to the other large whale we saw today, the Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) was also first seen as just a puff on the horizon, and some guests may have expected a repeat of the earlier hide and seek game. But as we got closer the whale fountain stayed at exactly the same place. Sperm whales are not so interested in games, they have business in a whole different world. So, the large individual we saw today was just breathing at the surface, resting and getting ready, and when it was ready, the fluke went up, it waves farewell, and left us, straight down, hidden, but impossible to seek, into the deep.
Quite similarly, some other animals we saw today also tend to hide for a long time, where a Short-finned pilot-whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) also goes down for a while, snacking on the abundant cephalopods, we saw one animal today that makes the rest of these marvellous deep divers look like amateurs. Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) goes much further than the rest, with a 2,9 km dive it is the current recordholder. However, since they are so hard to study, scientists can only speculate how far they could really go if they tried.
By Scott Dorssers
Sightings of the day
Ribeira brava
09:00 Bottlenose dolphin, Bryde’s whale, Sperm whale
Stenella
09:00 Atlantic spotted dolphin, Bryde’s whale
12:00 Cuvier’s beaked whale, Short finned pilot whale, Sperm whale
15:30 Sperm whale, Atlantic spotted dolphin
