Sunday’s dolphin trip, Vicki’s and Alexis’ first, was filled with bottlenose. After telling the interns and the passengers how little we know about Bimini’s bottlenose dolphins, how unpredictable and skittish they can be, etc., everyone got to observe them under water for TWO HOURS! It was amazing. Kel filled the memory card of the surface camera. Alexis’ camera battery died. Vicki nearly filled her camera. The MVA recorded 30 minutes of data. And we were all exhausted. What a great way to start their field experience!
We now have a lot of work ahead of us, entering field forms and sorting through today’s still photos – not to mention video logging. But, we can already tell that we will find matches in the DCP photo-ID catalog for some of the bottlenose seen today – will the adult in this possible mother/calf pair be among them?
Until next time,
Kel, Vicki & Alexis