Dolphins, turtles, sharks and fish.
We had 25 sightings this week – 13 of spotted dolphins, 5 just bottlenose dolphins and 2 with both species involved. We also had 4 turtle sightings and a few nurse sharks seen, and swum with! We spent 53 hours on effort/on watch looking for dolphins and about 85 minutes underwater with dolphins during 10 encounters and 10 short encounters. We even had a four minute swim with 7 bottlenose dolphins! They seem to be getting a bit less aloof with us up here on the banks. Our longest spotted dolphin encounter was 13 minutes 48 seconds with 5 spotted dolphins. Quite playful and socially active. We saw the following individuals: Adult females = #128, #42, #64, #2 Adult males = #12 (double gash), #6 (macho) Subadult males #103 (echo), #34 and will add two to three new juveniles to our identification catalog. Again, in about a week or two, we will post photos to the web site to introduce you to each of these dolphins (from the summer) and to share with you some of the sights we witnessed. Cheers and thank you for joining me with my summer field season. Kathleen