24 September 2024
On the WINGS Spain in Autumn birding tour we missed a pelagic voyage within the Gulf of Cadiz due to excessive winds at sea. There have been no climate issues, nonetheless, throughout our whale watching tour within the Strait of Gibraltar.
Embarking from Tarifa we motored virtually all the way in which to Morocco — this near Tangier.
Alongside the way in which we noticed pods of widespread dolphins and a pilot whale, which is definitely a big dolphin.
Within the U.S. the phrase dolphin is used casually as a synonym for the widespread bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus — i.e. “Flipper.” However widespread dolphins are a special species, Delphinus delphis, about half the scale of bottlenose dolphins.
A number of pods of widespread dolphins jumped excessive and performed within the water. They got here near the boat to swim within the bow wave and Jean Bickal took a video of them by the anchor portal.
Frequent dolphins happen in temperate and tropical seas round world but it surely was a privilege to see this subspecies on the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean inhabitants of widespread dolphins has been listed as Endangered since 2003(*).
p.s. Whereas on the boat we additionally noticed six hen species although I missed seeing considered one of them: European storm-petrel.
(*) IUCN says the 2003 evaluation must be up to date.
