Another Little Mystery Solved !

Hi Everyone,

There has been a few days of pretty good dolphin activity (for this time of year) with around a dozen or so local, well known individuals including our own Sundance and Mischief coming in and out of the Chanonry Narrows searching for food. In amongst the adult dolphins has been one of my favourites – a lovely big female ID#732 “Tall Fin” and she still has a bigger calf keeping her company, young “Doyle” ID#1126. A few days ago Doyle, who will be four years old this season was deliberately annoying Sundance and to get out of the way of a good slap decided to breach beautifully into the air twice in succession. Although the dolphins were about two hundred metres away, my hugest camera lens made them look really close and Doyle filled the frame very neatly…

ID#1126 “Doyle” breaching from the water.

In the following breach, not as nice as the one above – I managed to get some good, sharp and clear pictures of the young dolphins tummy (or ventral area) and after showing the photos to Barbara Cheney at Aberdeen University’s Lighthouse Field Station at Cromarty we have immediately agreed that Doyle is a girl, so another valuable member of this population can have one more piece of data put in her “passport” life history file. I love solving mysteries !

Best Wishes,

Charlie.