27.10.2018 – A baby was born
November 15, 2018
30.10.2018 – Windy coastal cruise and Pilot whales
November 17, 2018
The gusts of wind and the isolated showers of rain trailing along the coastline made it particularly hard for our team to locate animals out at sea this morning. The difficult conditions and the absence of cetaceans ultimately lead to us returning to the marina without a sighting.
We may often encounter animals other than cetaceans during our tours like different species of marine birds, basking sea turtles or atlantic fish species finding shelter or foraging under a floating object. We always try to collect rubbish during our trips on the Stenella to help do our part in cleaning the ocean, to raise awareness but also to show our guests the animals that may hinge or hide underneath these objects. Today we fished out a large piece of jablo that was being put to convenient use by a Sandwich tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis) that used it as a temporary resting place in between its foraging flights.
The object was also covered in pelagic goose barnacles (Lepas anatifera), filter-feeding crustaceans that hinge onto floating rubbish, the hull of boats or rocks at the intertidal zone. The position of the species determines their method of feeding; while pelagic goose barnacles use their cirri, a sort of fan to filter out food particles in the ocean, barnacles living on the coastline mainly rely on water motion to feed. Amongst the barnacles, we also managed to find a large (and rather feisty) male crab, another pelagic crustacean that faces entirely different challenges to its colourful cousins roaming the islands coastline.
This is once again proof of how the ocean brings out the beauty in everything and turns distressing, drifting pieces of human waste into a thriving mini-ecosystem.
by Paula Thake
Sightings of the day
Ribeira Brava
10:00 No sighting
Stenella
10:00 No sighting
