Mother and calves around the South Coast!

Today we went out with our both boats 🙂  Soon we were welcomed of the open ocean with good sea state conditions and a blue sky!

On the horizon there were already visible a lot of seabirds, our friend the Cory’s shearwaters 🙂

As we were approaching them, a group of Common dolphins joined us. Some were resting and swimming calmly – others were feeding on fish.

 

Did you know, that toothed whales and dolphins are having similar conical teeth? They need to use them for hunting on their prey, but as they are mammals, during their first years they take milk from their mothers.

Actually, the resting group included few calves, but mostly newborns and likely it was a nursery. The tiny dolphins were swimming next to their mothers and some were even engaging in trial jumps. Very funny and sweet to observe! Lactation may have occurred as well, as dolphins are known to use resting time for this delicate mother and calf interaction moment.

 

 

After a while we were able to observe also Atlantic spotted dolphins. Some approached our boat und showed their belly in between their agile and smooth way of swimming. Little bit more far away we could see them jumping and surfacing, too. It was a huge group!

 

 

On our search for more sea mammals, we found another two groups of Atlantic spotted dolphins on the eastern part of the island. Amazing that so many dolphins are gathering together 🙂 Seems, that there is enough fish around for all of them!

In the afternoon we also found some Risso’s dolphins and again a couple of mother and calf. Summer is the season for calving so we are expecting to see more and more baby dolphins in our next encounters!

 

Stay tuned for more adventures with the team of terra azul 🙂