Our 2016 summer fieldwork is now finished. We have packed all the equipment and left the beautiful archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar. We had a very successful data collection this season and a month full of good weather, great orca encounters and an amazing group of people! Team members Julie Béesau and Marie Louis share with us their thoughts about the season.
Julie
It was a pleasure to
come back to help again the Icelandic Orca’s team, now in the summer place in
Vestmannaeyjar. I discovered this wonderful area that is completely different
from the winter fieldwork, I cannot compare the two areas. It’s just so amazing
to be on the boat with the amazing wild animal named orcas. I spent two weeks
there to participate in the data collection, in particular photo-ID.
As always the team
atmosphere was really great, everyone on the boat was so happy to be in this
beautiful landscape with whales and try to collect as much data as possible.
We had some great
encounter with orcas and we saw some breaching and socialisation like the “pink
lamprey”… I would like to thank everyone for this wonderful two weeks spent
there.
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| Happy killer whale around Vestmannaeyjar. Photo by Julie Béesau. |
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| Amazing sunset after our last day on the boat. Photo by Julie Béesau. |
Marie
Fieldwork and staying
in Vestmannaeyjar was amazing. We had really
great weather during the last 8 days and could go out at sea every day. We saw
lots of killer whales in large feeding aggregations. One of the highlights of
the season was to see hundreds of killer whales swimming very fast away from
the pilot whales! It was very impressive!
Thanks everyone for a
great time! And a special mention to our
favourite friendly whale Cray-cray featured in the last blog post!
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| Spy-hopping killer whale. Photo by Marie Louis. |
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| The A-team enjoying the last very sunny and warm survey day (yes this photo was taken in Iceland!). Photo by Marie Louis. |
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