Today's topic is dolphins. We encountered several pods of dolphins with a few hundred members as well as a few smaller groups during our trip. Their playful nature and graceful leaping ability made them a favorite of photographers and non-photographers alike.

Few things got the people on deck as excited as seeing a line of dolphins on the horizon heading our way because it all-but guaranteed that a fun encounter was coming up. Our encounters with the dolphins frequently lasted a while as they seemed to enjoy our presence almost as much as we enjoyed theirs. As a result, these large pods would frequently swim along with us - providing many wonderful opportunities to photograph them.

At one point we did get a chance to see these incredibly intelligent animals hunting and feeding. In this shot, you can see the dolphins have formed a large arc. All the dolphins along the arc are swimming towards the center, driving fish before them.

The noose tightens around the fish... And within moments the dolphins have surrounded the fish and a feeding frenzy ensues with dolphins jumping everywhere and in all directions.

After several minutes of feeding, the dolphins resume their journey, searching for the next school of fish.

The next few photos concentrate on my attempts to catch one or a few dolphins mid-leap. Living the maxim "memory is cheap" to the fullest, I probably shot somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 frames of dolphins trying to get "the one." Because the leap of a dolphin happens so fast, about half of these were easily deleted right away as a failed attempt, and many more were deleted once I got home and saw them full screen.

The first pair of photos are some of the ones I took of dolphins bow-riding. For those of you who have never had a chance to experience it, dolphins enjoy surfing in the wave created by the bow of a ship as it cuts through the water and this behavior is called bow riding. It is clearly the dolphin's choice to do so as they are so much faster and more maneuverable than the ship that one (or often several) will dart in and out of the bow wave at will. For these two photos, I am leaning over the rail of the bow and literally shooting straight down at the dolphins.

The first shows a dolphin just coming to the surface to breathe. As you can see from the trail of bubbles, dolphins actually begin to exhale shortly before surfacing. They then expose the blowhole to the air, inhale deeply, and sink beneath the surface again.

As shown in the second shot, it is not unusual for a dolphin to completely leave the water as it takes a breath. As is also shown in the second shot, I needed a wider angle lens than what I was using at the time.

The first thing to notice about this dolphin is the remora on its side. A remora, or "sucker fish," has an especially adapted head which allows it to use suction to attach itself to and hold on to another animal. Remoras feed on small scraps that might be left-over after the dolphin eats and so really is just using the dolphin as free transportation. Remoras on dolphins were surprising common as quite a few had one attached. However, it was not the remora that attracted me to this dolphin. Instead, it was the way this dolphin seemed to almost dance on the surface of the water. It would raise almost its entire body out of the water and then use its tail to hold the position for a moment before falling back in. It repeated this behavior several times the afternoon we saw it.

The next shot is representative of the many near misses I had among my hundreds of photos. At least I have a nice photo of the eye, even if I'm just a smidge too late to have caught the snout out of the water.

Then again, all these near misses did serve an important purpose. They just made it that much more rewarding when in the final hour of the final afternoon of the last day of the trip I finally captured the shot I had been looking for in perfect light.

C&C welcome and thanks for looking!

Jay

fine work.

Morris

Looks like you had a good time. The last one is my pick.

Rob

Great set Jay & great information.

I just read about dolphin superpods & how they (the scientists) think they have to do with global warming. They're heading north.....

Must have been amazing to see

Lil

A wonderful story.
The last shot would make anyone happy. Very nice!


marty

Hi Jay thats a great set indeed, where were these seen and shot?

morris wrote:
fine work.

Morris

Thanks, Morris. I appreciate it.

Rob Tillyer wrote:
Looks like you had a good time. The last one is my pick.

Rob

Thanks, Rob. I had a great time. What fun to be able to watch these intelligent and graceful animals.

Lil Judd wrote:
Great set Jay & great information.

I just read about dolphin superpods & how they (the scientists) think they have to do with global warming. They're heading north.....

Must have been amazing to see

Lil

Hi Lil. I hadn't heard about a possible connection between superpods and global warming. Interesting. I'll have to look that up.

Jay

m. goodwin wrote:
A wonderful story.
The last shot would make anyone happy. Very nice!


marty

Thanks, Marty. I suppose that I would have been happy with the last shot under any circumstances, but the fact that it took two weeks and almost 3,000 images to capture just makes me appreciate it that much more.

Jay

mabidally wrote:
Hi Jay thats a great set indeed, where were these seen and shot?

Hi Mabidally. I was off the coast of Baja in the Gulf of California. My parents joined me for this trip:
http://www.expeditions.com/Itineraries45.asp?Expedition=149&Destination=287

and we spent two weeks exploring both coasts of the Baja Peninsula. The whale and dolphin watching was amazing. It was a trip especially designed for photographers so it was a good learning experience too as one of the members of the trip was Flip Nicklin, who has been National Geographic's premier whale photographer for over 20 years. Truly a remakable experience.

Jay

Nice work! It's a very impressive sight to see so many dolphins at the same time..

Wonderful story and very nice captures. Love the last six shots.

Jude

Great series and info.
Thanks for sharing.

Howard.

The images and storyline held my interest all the way through. Excellent work on both.

Wayne.

Great shots, nice narration! Must have been cool to see firsthand.

I would love to see this!

The last image is really sweet

You nailed it on the last one

Tim

tfoltz wrote:
You nailed it on the last one

Tim


+1

Garen