Another early day was greeted by overcast skies and some choppy sea conditions. The underwater visibility was still good and I was able to collect another 30 minutes of underwater video of the dolphins at Bailey’s Key. They were much more subdued as compared with yesterday! And, because there was still a bit of a current, though crossing differently from yesterday, the dolphins seemed to stay close to the shore area. The males were chasing one another while there was much infant swimming by the females and their calves and the younger females, too.
We stayed at Bailey’s after my underwater data collection to welcome Teri and continue with our innovative data collection. And, Heather and Dee worked diligently to collect baseline spatial data as well as area use by dolphins before, during and after my observations and that of the encounter and swim programs. John did some drone shots and got a really good one of Bailey’s Key (see cover photo for this blog report).
Our data collection sessions have been very, very productive. We’ll be kept busy for quite a while analyzing these data.
Tomorrow is our last day of data collection! We look forward to seeing the “small weather system” push through tonight so we have a bright sunny and clear day with much to document!
Cheers,
Kathleen, Heather, Dee, & John
P.S. DCP’s dolphin science podcast – The Dolphin Pod – has just returned! And we need your help to produce new episodes. Visit https://www.gofundme.com/the-dolphin-pod to make a tax-deductible donation! All proceeds will fund the production of new episodes. And of course, check out all the existing episodes here: https://www.dolphincommunicationproject.org/index.php/the-latest-buzz/the-dolphin-pod