google.com, pub-1183232341631896, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 We Discover Canada And Beyond: White - Sided Dolphins
My RV Cook Book, "Tinfoil Cooking" is now published on Amazon!

Check it out Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or any other site worldwide! For a luxury coilbound version on 80# stock go to my cooking website AndersCooks.ca


24 October 2011

White - Sided Dolphins

White - Sided Dolphins Visiting Cortes Island, BC

Not sure which book I'm thinking of maybe it's "The Richest Man In Babylon" where the fellow sells all his land and travel the world looking for diamonds. Finally broke, he returns to his home land to find that the person that bought his land found diamonds in the creek on the property he used to own.

Maybe this is a little bit like that. We traveled all across this wonderful country of ours and returned to this wonderful piece of paradise called British Columbia to find nature showing off at it's outmost.

Here they come
The other day our neighbour John came over and told us there were dolphins in the bay. Sure enough there they were, going like crazy. They swam back and forth a few times then they disappeared.

White-Sided Dolphins in Smelt Bay, Cortes Island, BC. Canada

Later when I was out fishing for sole (" I'm the sole man") they came to visit me. They came right for me.... not sure what to do, I started the motor and got up to a slow cruise.... They followed and came up on my side about 30 to 40 ft from me. Then they decided my little boat, "Bubbles" is something to play with. They swam all around me and splashed water in the boat. It was such a rush, words can not describe.

The part of the movie in the boat is a bit shaky, but I think you get the idea. It was out of this world, fantastic!!



The dolphins, I think are White - Sided Dolphins which have three colours. The chin, throat and belly are creamy white.

The beak (mouth), flippers, the back, and dorsal fin are of a dark gray colour. There are light gray patches on the sides of the body and a further light gray stripe running from above the eye to below the dorsal fin where it thickens along the tail. There is also a dark gray ring surrounding the eyes.

Incredible
Females weigh up to 150 kilograms (330 lb) and males 200 kilograms (440 lb). The males can reach 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) in length and females 2.3 meters (7.5 ft).

Females reach maturity at 7 years and a gestation period of one year. These wonderful individuals can live 40 years or more.


The Pacific White-sided Dolphin is extremely active and playful. It readily approaches boats and bow-rides.... no doubt about that one. Large groups are common averaging 90 individuals or so and super-groups of more than 300 can be found. 



They love fish and the main prey is mainly hake, anchovies, squid, herring, salmon and cod which they munch up with their 60 some teeth.


Hope you enjoy the movie.


Cheers,


Liz and Anders

2 comments:

  1. wow!great shots! there have been a lot of sightings of these dolphins around campbell river the past month. a super pod of 500-1000 have been spotted a few times!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I finally had a chance to show this to Trev. They are really amazing to watch. It must have been so neat to be soooo close to them. Nature is wonderful. Enjoy it all. Thanks for sharing it with us. We really enjoyed it.
    Trev and Sharon

    ReplyDelete