Nice conditions and a new neonate

A young mother  dolphin calf

The weather today was pretty nice. It was sunny all morning and in the afternoon, which heated up the water a degree or two. I had two boat trips and managed a fair amount of video. We came across a large group of resting dolphins today, and Nana-chan spotted a neonate in the group. The mother was identified as Hibiware! Hibiware is a young female – only 9 years old or so – and this is her first calf. We saw a lot of her last year together with her friends Ringo-chan and Dokkiri. Together, this subadult female trio was spotted in the vicinity of adult males on a regular basis. The result of last year’s frolicking with the males is this young calf. We had seen Hibiware just yesterday without a calf, which means that the calf was born either today or last night. The strange thing is, Hibiware was not together with a mother-calf group – something to be expected of a first time mother. Instead, she was swimming together witha group of males. Odd indeed. Let’s hope she can leave her bachelorette life behind her…
-Justin