Today I took a whale watching trip out of Canical in the east of Madeira, run by Sea Emotions. Really enjoyable, they found us around 15 each of short-finned pilot whale and bottlenose dolphin. The pilot whales came very close to the boat and had at least a couple of calves with them.
This was my first encounter with this species. I have seen long-finned pilot whales previously off southern Australia, and I have to take the word of todays guides and the Australian guides that they are the species they claim, because separating them is virtually impossible in the field. However, on range short-finned are by far the most likely off Madeira and long-finned most likely off southern Australia. These pilot whales are resident around Madeira and have been well studied.
Pilot whales of both species often spy hop like this. They're just being nosey and looking at us.
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