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Project Noah Nature School
Delphinus delphis
The common dolphin is easily recognisable by its distinctive markings - dark on top, white belly and an "hourglass" pattern that can be light grey to yellow or gold. They are very playful, and swam along our ship on many occasions, giving us quite an acrobatics display!
Temperate to warm waters, found mainly on shelf breaks. This picture was taken somewhere in the Celtic Sea, but we saw them on the western coast of Scotland too.
Despite the fact we saw lots of dolphins (and some pilot whales), this is the only photo I got! They were very quick, and I unfortunately didn't have a good position to get any photos of them. All the other times we saw any were when I was working so didn't have a camera. I think for the next cruise I will bring my compact along too, so I can keep it in my pocket when I'm working. We saw a baby dolphin, and I was so sad I couldn't get a shot!
Spotted on Jun 12, 2011
Submitted on Sep 18, 2011
8 Comments
Lori, that is amazing! Though you managed to actually get the dolphins out of the water haha :) And thank you p.young!
Great photo!
It's amazing how some animals can be spotted on the absolute opposite sides of the planet: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/428...
Thanks Mick! They are wonderful to watch aren't they :) It was incredible how effortlessly they kept up with our ship!
Nice creatures - I worked in the Oil & Gas North Sea many years ago and watched them - lovely animals - Good spotting!
Thanks Gordon! This was actually the first time I had the privelage of seeing dolphins in the wild, even though I live right near the coast haha! They are wonderful creatures, and I do wish I could have got a picture of that baby...!
By the way...nice shot!
I've seen Dolphins on only a couple of occasions. Living in Minnesota is just about as far from saltwater as one can get...grin. Such charismatic animals and a young one would be quite the photographic capture.