Birthday Dance

Today we celebrated a birthday with our dolphins. A dolphin lover with a true understanding of dolphins and the healing power they possess wanted her own special dance with dolphins for her birthday today. Her husband and son along the three of them had a very special magical time with some very special dolphins. Gumdrop, Theo and Spots among others came to the boat over and over and at times just lingered with this special birthday girl. They loved her and she was in tears over them. What a great time we all had. It was hard to say goodbye. Then I had another tour with a family of four from Houston area and the boys were real dolphin enthusiasts along with mom and dad. They had the dolphins playing around the boat with their enthusiasm and interest. Again it was Gumdrop and Spots! We had a frigate bird fly overhead. The wind kicked up in the afternoon but the morning was ever so calm. What incredible weather we are having. All is well at the nature center with many nature buffs full of questions getting lots of eco friendly answers.

World Ocean Day June 8th

Today we celebrated World Ocean Day with free admission to the sealife center and several free trips on my research vessel. We had a beautiful day with some dolphin just off shore that are visiting the area. It was calm in the bay and we all had a day of reverance for our great bodies of oceans and bays that are homes to our beloved Cetaceans and sealife. Here are a few photos of mom and baby and families on my boat.

Manta Ray Day on the bay

Today was a day of great people and great events. The bay was calm and blue water and so gentle compared to past Junes of howling south winds and dust storms. It would normally be July before we would get days like this on the bay. And today we had a visit from a most honored guest, a Manta Ray. A young manta came into the jetties and we were blessed with its presence for quite a while. He came right to us with gaping mouth filling with water and looked right at us.
Our dolphins were delightful and I spent much of the time videoing them in the blue water as they played around my pontoon. The Great Blue Herons are getting closer to fledging everyday and today as we checked on them there was mother ready to feed them and it seemed as if the siblings were saying ME no Me first! Brown Pelicans were diving all around us feeding on the huge bait balls meandering around the shipping channel. God is Good.

Babies can jump

All you have to do is ask, Can babies jump? Of course they can. This baby dolphin loves to jump and frolic and play. At just a few months old the baby dolphins begin their little jumps and playing. They are slowly given more freedom just as we give our babies more freedom to play. And just like our babies, the dolphin babies love to play together. But they are under the constant watchful eyes of their mothers and other females in their family group. They all have to learn to get along and be nice to each other just as we do.

This little one, almost pure white, must be a little boy. He was busy playing with his buddy while we watched with our boat nearby. We coaxed him a little asking for a jump and it wasn't long before the little guy did a little jump. Not very high but nevertheless a nice jump. Practice makes perfect and as they reach adult hood they will leap over fifteen feet into the air. They will become big and powerful. Some dolphins like to jump more than others and some jump because they have a funny little fish called a remora hanging on them which I will write about and include photos of dolphins leaping with remoras clinging on to the dolphins body. We should be seeing some of this now that the water is warm. To enjoy our wild dolphins of South Padre Island, our Real World Dolphins, visit fin2feather.com They are awesome.

Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins

I took four trips out today with dolphin enthusiasts. The bait balls of fish are everywhere, the water was popping with fish and the dolphins all had full tummies. The nursery meandered the shipping channel all day with little ones from new borns to three and four year olds. One of the babies had fun learning to wake ride. It was flying out of the water on the wake of a large boat I was on leading a tour for a family reunion of over twenty people.
Just out at the jetties the boys were leaping and playing with fish. I took over three hundred photos and was able to document many of the new babies. We saw cownosed rays in the bay and a great big tarpon rolled at the end of the jetties. Yesterday we played with the Sargasso Sea Weed and took some of its creatures to the center to put on display.
The baby Great Blue Herons are growing fast and look like they may leave their nest soon. They look like Jim Henson Muppets to me. Their mother soaked each twig in water to soften it and then weave the nest. It was fun to watch her build that nest.
Scar and the other boys followed us across the bay on one tour. Scar is an old friend and is one of our blackest dolphin. Baby Spots in contrast is one of our whitest dolphins. Color is not an issue with our dolphins!
Hope you all enjoy the photos and my dolphins and all the wonders of SPI