24 September 2024
On the WINGS Spain in Autumn birding tour we missed a pelagic voyage in the Gulf of Cadiz because of high winds at sea. There were no weather problems, however, during our whale watching tour in the Strait of Gibraltar.
Embarking from Tarifa we motored almost all the way to Morocco — this close to Tangier.
Along the way we saw pods of common dolphins and a pilot whale, which is actually a large dolphin.
In the U.S. the word dolphin is used casually as a synonym for the common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus — i.e. “Flipper.” But common dolphins are a different species, Delphinus delphis, about half the size of bottlenose dolphins.
Several pods of common dolphins jumped high and played in the water. They came close to the boat to swim in the bow wave and Jean Bickal took a video of them through the anchor portal.
Common dolphins occur in temperate and tropical seas around world but it was a privilege to see this subspecies at the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean population of common dolphins has been listed as Endangered since 2003(*).
p.s. While on the boat we also saw six bird species though I missed seeing one of them: European storm-petrel.
(*) IUCN says the 2003 assessment needs to be updated.