Happy World Dolphin Day!

World Dolphin Day takes place on September 12 every year to celebrate these amazing animals, and also to raise awareness about the threats dolphins around the world face: pollution, habitat destruction, the impacts of climate change, bycatch, and more.

The more time I spend around these beautiful animals, the more they fascinate and impress me. Their incredible speed, agility, and coordination is mind-blowing. I like them all of course, but the Common Dolphins are my favorite. To me, they’re the dogs of the dolphin world – adorable, curious, playful, and seem to be as interested in us humans as we are in them. I love watching them zoom along the boat and suddenly leap out of the water. When they’re not hunting for food, it really seems like they do it for fun, and it makes me smile every time.

And from what I’ve seen, the bottlenose dolphins are like the cats of the dolphins. 🙂 The ones I’ve come across have been a lot more elusive than the Common Dolphins. Sometimes they want to check you out, other times, they’re like, “hm, humans, I don’t think so, see you later” and disappear.

Common dolphins
Common dolphin and fish
Common dolphin
Common dolphin
Common dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins
Common dolphin
Bottlenose dolphin

I photographed all these images on ocean trips with Feathers & Scales in Lisbon, Portugal. I’m actually in Portugal as I’m writing this (the Algarve at the moment), and I’ve been out on a few dolphin watching excursions down here as well. They’ve been good, but not as good as the Feathers & Scales ones – those are something truly special! I’m headed up to Cascais next and hope to go out with them at least a few times before I leave, I have become completely addicted to it, and it’s one of my favorite things to do here!