First Fin Whales of February!

Good sunny afternoon !

This morning we went to the Ocean, and Nature surprised us!

We start and finished with pods of Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis) first socializing and also feeding !
During the trip, we drove 9 miles out off the coast to encounter 3 Fin Whales (Balaenoptera physalus)!

This feeling of meeting such a huge animal is always so amazing ! It was the first time for some of people on board that they saw a whale, so it is always very emotional! 🙂 They were probably just socializing, moving slowly.

After the trip, we looked a little bit more to the pictures (see below!) that we collected during the trip, and one whale is definitely different than the other ones. It is possible that this individual was a Fin Whale / Blue Whale hybrid! This can only be confirmed by genetic analysis and you can learn more about this phenomena in our previous post HERE! The skin was a lighter with dark patches, the head was also more U-shaped, and the dorsal fin was different from the other individuals encountered today.

One of the whales also had a special “parasite”: on the pictures below you can appreciate a red tag. It is probably a research tag, most likely a satellite tracking device. We do not know from which scientific team, but maybe from the north of Europe.