A lot of turtles in Pico Island and Sperm whales in São Miguel

In Pico Island, we had a surprise with a lot of turtles with little fishes around. It seemed to be 8 Loggerhead turtles. It was a fantastic moment! In our tour, we also encountered Risso's dolphins and Common dolphins.

Learn more about loggerhead turtle, the most common seen in the Azores.

Loggerhead turtle

Risso's dolphin

Common dolphin

In São Miguel Island in the morning we had a group of sperm whales not far from Ponta Delgada. Several different individuals were spread out over a large area, including at least two young ones that were seen from one of our boats. A breach (whale jumping out of the water) was also seen from one of our small boats, a great and rare moment indeed! 

Sperm whale tail

Sperm whale 

We also enjoyed the company of a large group of bottlenose dolphins during the day, both from our whale watching boats and swimming with dolphins boat. 

In the afternoon it looked like some of the swimmers were very lucky to have a few curious dolphins swimming close to them. To finish this adventurous day out on the ocean we encountered a group of striped dolphins, which as they usually do, put on a great show for us with their energetic leaps out of the water. 

May 2018 Sighting and statistics in São Miguel and Pico Islands

May has been an incredible month for whale watching in the Azores;

In São Miguel, in terms of days gone to the sea we had an amazing month of May, as we went to the ocean a 100% of the days to the ocean and we saw whales a 99% of the times.

May started amazingly we a pod of orcas; a total of 10 different species have been seen along the month: the big five of the Azores: blue, fin, sei, humpback and sperm whales; killer and false killer whales, many different dolphin species.

The fin whale has been the species we encountered the most and we can remark the presence of blue whale, which is a bite later than usual.

In Pico Island, a total of 10 species have been seen in our tours during months of May and April, including of course the resident ones (sperm whales, common, bottlenose and Risso’s dolphins), the lovely Fin whales, Blue whales and of course the Sei whales and Humpback whales!

Species

Sighting frequency

Baleia comum | Fin whale                                                       77%

Golfinho comum | Common dolphin                                        77%

Cachalote | Sperm whale                                                        58%

Baleia azuis | Blue whale                                                        58%

Golfinho de Risso | Risso's dolphin                                        50%

And we had a very special encountered in our tours in Pico Island. We saw a hybrid between a blue and fin whale for twice. 

May is one of the best times to see cetaceans in the Azores and if the weather goes along… amazing!

Let’s see what will happen in june!

Sperm, Blue and Fin whales and two dolphin species

Despite the bad weather in São Miguel Island, we had in the morning that forced us to cancel the morning tour, the afternoon was amazing. We encountered four species of cetaceans!

We started our journey with two blue whales, a mother with a calf; followed by a fin whale that was encountered from the boat when we were heading the bottlenose dolphins; once we arrived in the area… sperm whales appeared!

We spend also some time with the dolphins, that was, by the way, a giant group with more than 200 dolphins over there; and to finish we saw another sperm whale.

In Pico Island we encountered two resident species. Sperm whales and Common dolphins.

Sperm whale tail 

Common dolphins

Sperm whale dorsal

Common dolphins

Bottlenose and Risso's dolphins in our tour in São Miguel Island

Because of the wind blowing southeast, the sea was not perfect, it was a little bit bumpy.
We were still able to see a very calm pod of Risso's dolphins and after that a group of bottlenose dolphins. We notice that one of them bottlenose was Alvin, a dolphin with no dorsal fin.

Heads dorsals and tails Bottlenose dolphins

A dolphin Risso say Hello to our guests

All the dorsal fins Bottlenose dolphins are different

The dolphin to the left with the cut dorsal fin who we call Alvin

Risso's dolphin head

Risso's dolphin

How many blue whales cross the Azores?

This is the question that we all in Futurism Azores Whale Watching ask, and that tourists often ask us. We will try to explain what we know.

It was 20 years ago that we saw our first Blue Whale, at that time we were at sea only a few times during the spring months, for our lookouts these were the hardest Whales to work with, their behavior is more erratic than those of the Sperm whales, who always dazzle us with the time they spend resting at surface.

But we are talking about the greatest living thing that ever existed on our planet, and it happens here in our waters of the Azores, we wanted to see, enjoy, know more about these Ocean Giants. This led us to collaborate with Dr. Richard Sears from MICS (Mingan Island Cetacean Study) research group, the group that had the largest number of blue whales recorded in the West Atlantic Ocean, 451 individuals.

Gradually, year after year, we were identifying these magnificent creatures, we were able to identify each individual because we take pictures of the side of his body, because although they are called Blue Whales, his body is covered with dark gray and light gray spots, which do not change over time, and they are different from individual to individual, similar to our fingerprints.

While in the early years, whenever we identified an individual, this was new to the East Atlantic Catalog, this gradually changed, many people began to contribute to this catalog, from the Azores, Iceland, Spitsbergen, Ireland, Spain, Mauritania and also mainland Portugal and Madeira.

We began slowly to obtain some individuals that we already knew, these appeared again in the Azores and also in these other places, until 2014, the year in which more Blue Whales were identified in the Azores, about 100 different individuals, we obtained the first matching between the different Catalogs of the Atlantic West and East.

We continue our work every year and in this year 2018 the preliminary results are surprising, we have matching rates of around 50%, which means that every time we see two whales we know one of them.

Some 700 Blue Whales have already been identified in the Eastern Zone of the Atlantic, was the Azores contribute with about 560 individuals. We may already know about half of them. If we add 600 of them to the West Atlantic we are talking about 3000 to 5000 Blue Whales in the North Atlantic Ocean, something fantastic but still far from the 200,000 Blue Whales that were hunted by our ancestors.

It´s essential that we continue our photo identification work, to better understand how many Blue Whales cross our seas, but also to understand where they come from, where they are going. We have to go even further, we have to realize how many males are how many females, how many calves are born per year? Only the knowledge allows us to understand this whales and many other species, Knowledge is an important "weapon" to protect them from mistakes of the Past and preserve for the Future. 

Written by Rui Santos

A grey day in the company of marine wildlife

Looks like the animals are not bothered by the weather!

In the morning we started with a national geographic moment, common dolphins and striped dolphins in a very big group all feeding alongside with a lot of seabirds... Breakfast time! 

Common dolphins feeding

Common dolphin

Cory's Shearwater

Portuguese Man-o-war

Zodiac boat

After we went really far away, we could see Santa Maria island perfectly, and we were with some sperm whales, the biggest predator in the world and also the animal with the biggest brain in the world (the size of a basketball). We ended this tour with some bottlenose dolphins.

Sperm whale

In the afternoon a big group of common dolphins very close to Ponta Delgada, surfing the waves and playing with the boats. The bottlenose dolphins were again the last species of the tour.

Common dolphins

Sunny day with lots of animals. The perfect tour!

Today was the day of big pods!

The bottlenose dolphins never let us down! In the morning we started with a big group of bottlenose dolphins going really fast and jumping in the front of the boat splashing the people from the small boat. 

Bottlenose dolphin making bubbles

It is always special when clients get passionate about the sighting. One of our little clients baptized one special bottlenose dolphin with half it's tail as Halfie. 

Halfie half tail

After we went to an area with sperm whales, we had around 10 in the group. One of the whales come really close to our boat and we could see a lot of white marks in the dorsal.

Sperm whales pod

Sperm whale approaching our boat

In the afternoon we started with a very acrobatic group of bottlenose dolphins, always jumping and playing with the boat looking at us sometimes. For the third time this year we found a species of dolphins that looks like that is always late for something. A pod of striped dolphins with more than 100 animals, normally this species, here in the Azores, swims really fast and don't wait for us.

Striped dolphin jumping

Striped dolphins jumping

Sperm whale tail

Sperm whale tail

In our third tour, we had a surprise! Sei whale! Looks like the baleen whale season is still on! 

Sei whale

A full day of our resident dolphins and whales

In São Miguel we had a day with our resident dolphins and whales. 

We encountered a big group of sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins, common dolphins and Risso's dolhpins. 

From all our different boats and tours throughout the day we had some really memorable moments with these species.

The sperm whales put on a bit of a show in the afternoon and several times we could see them breaching (jumping out of the water) and grouping up to socialise. 

Sperm whale breaching 




Sperm whales 

The dolphins were also very social and curious as usual, and to make today's sigtings even better we had great weather that reminded us that summer is beginning.

Bottlenose dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins

Common dolphins

Risso's dolphin diving

Risso's dolphins adult (white) and juvenile (dark)

Risso's dolphin face

In Pico Island we can saw three different dolphins species. A lot of common dolphins, a group of male Risso’s dolphins and another group of bottlenose dolphins with females and calves.

Common dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins

Risso's dolphins