Monday Morning | Whale and Dolphin Watching

Today was the birds time to visit us. On a cold and windy day that had beautiful colors during the morning time we had some time with common dolphins, our resident specie but we also spotted some Great Skua, Black-head gull and yellow-legged gull.

Common Dolphin

Sunday Morning | Whale and Dolphin Watching

Today was Mr. Liable's turn to wish us a Happy New Year! The most famous Sperm Whale of our waters came to say "hi" and a beautiful "goodbye" with his majestic tail. See you soon Mr Liable! 🙂 
We also spotted some bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins. A wonderful morning, well spent. 

Zodiac leaving the harbour

Bottlenose Dolphin

Bottlenose Dolphin

Mr. Liable tail

Saturday Morning - Whale and dolphin Watching

Today we had our first 2018 "hi" from the Risso's dolphins! A group of females and juveniles showed up on our morning trip. A lovely experience on a specially cold morning in the Azores, despite the mild climate. 

Risso's dolphin

Risso's dolphins

Risso's dolphin

Risso's dolphins

First sperm whales of the year!

This morning  we went out and we encountered for the first  sperm whales of 2018! When we arrived to the area where the whales were, our looking warned us that they were swimming very fast and making many short dives; it was not the easiest day but in the end we managed to see a calf and two adult togheter later on.
Once the sperm whales were well seen we continue our  tour to see some common dolphins; a big group appeared and in contrast this ones were very curious swimming with us, bow ridding our catamaran and making some small jumps.
Today was a very pleasant tour, we hope to see over and over this beautiful animals this year!







Photos from this morning:

Sperm whale calf

Adult sperm whale

Common dolphins were very curious and playful today

Common dolphin

Great skua

Azorean Breakfast

We started the trip and a few minutes after, we found some seagulls flying around always in the same area, and this always mean something …DOLPHINS! When we got to the area there was some dorsal fins ripping the waves, common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) our most encountered specie never let us down! We stayed with the dolphins watching them and the seagulls trying to catch some fish …Nice breakfast!

Three common dolphins surfacing

Common dolphins

Common dolphin in the surface

Plenty of dolphins

Today we had a really north cold day, but that wasn’t a problem for us! We went with our catamaran, and we even had some hot tea on board!

We started our tour seeing many common dolphins, several groups of this species appeared along the tour.

The big surprise came when our lookout sent us to check if a giant group that he was seeing were also common dolphins, but they weren’t. Almost in the east corner of the island a group of around 200 dolphins appeared!

A great tour with no whales but plenty of dolphins!

 

Some photos of our tour: 

Bottlenose dolphins were swimming and jumping following our catamaran

 




 

Common dolphins were also very friendly

2017 Whale and dolphin highlights

 

 Now that 2017 is over, it's time for us to think about what happened in this year and of course to continue studing and learning about this beautifull animals we are pationated with, 2017 has been a very interesting year for us in whale and dolphin watching off São Miguel:

A total of 16 different species were encountered this year. The most frequently sighted as usual have been our resident dolphin species, common and bottlenose dolphins, this is a tendency that we see every year with this species as there are some families that are living around our island. Our other resident species, the Risso's dolphin are always less sighted here in São Miguel, but in this year this species was seen every month, at least once.

This has been a very good year of sighting of our resident whale, the sperm whale as we can see in the image below; this is a whale species that may be encounter all along the year but is clearly more encountered in early summer, during the summer and in the late summer, but present all along the year.

Atlantic spotted dolphins have been a surprise this year as they have stayed with us for a very long time this year, they started appearing in the month of June, giving a very good welcome to the summer and they stayed up to December; not only that they have been very encountered, but the encounters with these ones have been great: very big groups of them full of babies. Our swimming with dolphins’ activities were very successfully with this species this year, not only because of the big size of the groups, but also because of their especially curious behaviour of this year ;)

 Fin whale was also a species sighted significantly, mainly during our spring months but also summer and autumn. This whale species it is not considered resident of the Azores, but even though it is true that these whales are seen in spring and summer time during their migrations, for the last years this species have been seen (not very often) around of our island even in winter time, so who knows... We certainly need more studies

Out of the baleen whales that are found in the Azores, three species have had a different behaviour compared to previous years:

-The big surprise were the Bryde's whales, since 2013 and before that 2009 that we didn't see them, this year we had some several individuals, including a calf.

-Blue whales this year were very abundant if compared with other years

-Sei whales were also kind of a surprise as they are usually sighted in spring summer time, but this 2017 appeared with a great abundance in September, October, November and even in December!

We never know what we will see so we can expect a surprise at any time of the year from any species. As well as whales and dolphins we have also registered many sightings of turtles, ocean sunfish, manta rays, sharks, tuna, swordfish, flying fish, jellyfish and several species of seabirds. 

Our graphs below summarise our cetacean (whale and dolphins) sighting frequencies.

We hope you can join us in 2018!

 

Summary of our encounters all along 2017

 In this graphs below we summarise some of our cetaceans (whale and dolphins) sighting frequencies

This are all of the species and the frequencies of the sightings, as we said resident species are the most sighted ones as usual, this year Atlantic spotted dolphins have a speciel highlight

Surprise

The new year continues to bring us surprises. We started our morning with beautiful colors on the sky and a huge rainbow. Then we spotted three different fin whales, two adults and a juvenile together. They were very calm at the surface, going on small dives and returning again to the surface, making our day brighter. On our return we were able to find a large group of common dolphins, very playful and full of juveniles and calves. What a pleasant morning!

Two fin whales

Fin whale

 Common dolphins

...and Hello 2018!

We started our year with two trips to the sea! A short time passed but we already missed our common dolphin. In the morning it did not take to long for us to find a large group of common dolphins who were very happy feeding on fish. We finished our morning with a visit to the islet of Vila Franca do Campo where we could see the small beach that appear when the tide is low. In the afternoon we found huge balls of fish being caught by common dolphins and seagulls. No doubt the dolphins and seagulls are starting their year with a full tummy.