Biosphere Expeditions: blogs from the frontline of wildlife conservation and the fight for a more sustainable planet

Update from our marine conservation volunteering holiday in the Azores archipelago, working on whales, dolphins and turtles

The early part of the week brought a change in the winds, and a change of direction for our surveys. We initially headed north to follow up a report of a humpback whale in the area. This was our first time north of Faial this year, and heading into a north-westerly wind and building waves made the search harder than we wanted, but the humpback was finally located – a favourite species for many.

Staying with it brought more challenges, and having briefly lost it, the team spotted what we initially thought were the characteristic white pectoral fins in the waves, but this turned out to be a random sighting of Risso’s dolphins – doing their best to distract us. They achieved this briefly before the humpback was re-found and ID photos secured.

Subsequent surveys and sightings brought more dolphins in the form of common and bottlenose, the latter being less frequently sighted, but have now been located by all three expedition groups. So more dorsal fin ID images to process and catalogue.

We also spent a day south of Pico (very familiar territory) tracking sperm whales. It is still surprisingly easy to lose these magnificent beasts, as they can dive for 45 minutes. This gave us an excuse to deploy our hydrophone – a sophisticated underwater microphone – so we can listen in on the underwater world, and hopefully locate sperm whales and other species. It wasn’t as effective as we hoped, but our lookouts were able to locate more whales – with ‘eyes all around’.

Using the hydrophone kit was timely, as we welcomed Sarah Kather for dinner. She studied sperm whale vocalisations for her Master’s Thesis (at the University of the Azores) and gave a fascinating insight into the importance of sound-based communication (and noise pollution) for various cetacean species.

Amongst all this, Lisa also managed to match some of the sperm whale flukes documented from our earlier sightings, showing three individual females had been repeatedly recorded up to ten times over a sixteen year period. This further highlights the importance of the Azores to this species.

Fingers crossed for our final days on the 2025 expedition.

Update from our marine conservation volunteering holiday in the Azores archipelago, working on whales, dolphins and turtles

We have commenced the third and final part of the 2025 Azores expedition. It is great to have another diverse and enthusiastic group. With the welcomes, greetings, briefings and training sessions out of the way, we were all keen to get out to sea. Again, the weather made us wait a day, but used the day with more training and science presentations.

Our first day at sea was a triumph. Starting almost where we had left off – with a blue whale. That means blue whales have been seen on all but one day at sea this year – which is incredible. Next were a large group of sperm whales, who again were not the most cooperative, with very few fluking – so limited ID data, but a great job by the team for keeping up with all the sperm whale sightings. Add in some common dolphins, a loggerhead turtle, and this was a great start.

But our day was not done, it ended almost as it began, with another blue whale sighting, but this turned out to be a pair of blue whales – a first for this year. I am beginning to think we should rebrand to the Azure Expedition!

Our second sea day was less frenetic, but had a common theme – blue whales. We also recorded a large male sperm whale and common dolphins as we travelled along the south of Pico, using the volcano as a shield from the prevailing winds and thus take advantage of the calm-ish waters.

It has been a good start to the last leg, and here’s hoping our luck continues.

Update from our marine conservation volunteering holiday in the Azores archipelago, working on whales, dolphins and turtles

In the words of Crowded House, it feels like we’ve been ‘walking round the room singing stormy weather’, as the seas have put on quite a show. This has also curtailed our boat time but not put a full stop to data collection or image processing – there are always things to do on the expedition – whatever the weather!

Indeed the worst of the sea conditions provided an opportunity for a day off and time spent exploring Faial, and enjoying the visual spectacle of the mid-Atlantic. It also gave an opportunity to process more data, and the chance for another talk; this time from Cláudia Oliveira from the Azores Whale Lab on the role of photo-identification and bioacoustics for sperm whale studies. Again, illustrating the power of data collection such as ours.

Over the past few days, we have travelled almost 400 km over four days at sea. The group has been able to add vital cetacean data to this year’s haul, add a new bird species, and the numbers of encounters and individuals have also increased. A great effort by another great group.

So, as we bid group 2 farewell, we now welcome group 3; and we hope you bring the luck with the whales and the ‘weather with you’.

Safe travels all.

Update from our marine conservation volunteering holiday in the Azores archipelago, working on whales, dolphins and turtles

The Azores sits in the middle of North Atlantic ocean, but the weather and sea state can still restrict us to a relatively small area for surveys. This has been the case for the past few days.

Following a shore day on Wednesday and a chance to explore the island of Faial, we headed out to sea, more in hope than expectation. We were initially rewarded with an extended common dolphin sighting, close to the south of Faial. This was followed by a second encounter, in the waters protected from the worst of the winds.

Our luck then improved further, with a ‘random’ blow sighted, which of course turned out to be yet another blue whale. And during the course of obtaining the required ID pictures (great job Pixy), a second blow was spotted, but heading into the worsening seas, so we gave no chase. Whilst waiting to photograph both sides of ‘our’ blue whale, we spotted a ‘strange’ looking, almost leucistic gull. With images circulated to bird groups, it transpired that it was an Icelandic gull – a rarer visitor to these waters, normally seen in very low numbers over winter.

The day ended with an encounter with Risso’s dolphins not to far from home. The calmer waters meant a relaxed observation of four mums with calves. From the photos taken we could work out that one of the mums has been documented since 2006, so is likely to be over 20 years old. Well worth getting out on the boat.

Additionally, one of the blue whales recorded at the start of week was first recoded in 2001, and this is the sixth year it has been documented, but never previously so early in the year. We await news on some of our other sightings.