The photos we take on our tours aren’t just pretty; they’re used as scientific data. For academics, it can be invaluable to have hard evidence that a certain individual has returned to a time or place. This can tell us more about animal migrations, their feeding/breeding habitats, and how these are changing. Recently (with today being no exception), we’ve been seeing a lot of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), and this means we’ve been spending a lot of time staring lovingly at our photos after our tours. In this staring, the academic eye of Sara has picked something out. We’ve been seeing the same group. It seems for the past week that a large group of female sperm whales have been doing laps of the island. Is it a bonding exercise or social trend? are the feeding conditions, right? Have they just had one too many giant squids and are trying to burn off the calories? The truth is we don’t know all we can say for certain is….ITS SO COOL!!
By Peter Worth
Sightings of the day
Stenella
09:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales
13:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales
16:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales
Ribeira Brava
09:30 Bottlenose dolphins,
13:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales