Bottlenose Dolphins 2/23/25
I’ve been trying to track these rascals down for the past few weeks (though my friend Chris has been putting in even more effort in finding them - he’s gone a bit insane trying to find them). They’re not nearly as easy as the whales to find and track. Today I was going to take a break from looking and catch up on other things. So I was sitting in the living room, drinking my coffee and watching a little TV before getting started on my tasks when my “spidey sense” went off telling me to look out the window. I’ve learned to pay attention to that, so I looked out and briefly saw a dark object on the water. I grabbed the binoculars and started scanning, and sure enough there were a couple Bottlenose Dolphins. I dashed off a quick post to the forum in case anyone (particularly Chris) wanted to try and chase them too. Then I grabbed my camera and headed to the pier.
It took a bit to relocate them, and they had traveled a fair bit north by the time I got out there. I debated whether to stay, in case they turned around, or to see if I could get ahead of them. I opted to get ahead of them and hurried back home, hopped in the car and headed to Ft Funston. I searched for a while without luck and was wondering whether I had made the wrong choice. But Chris had seen my message and started his search a bit south of my position and didn’t see them. After a bit longer, they finally showed up at Ft Funston. I was expecting to just get a few shots as they motored on by. But as luck would have it, they decided to hang around in the general area for a whopping 2.5 hours. They would travel north for a while then turn around and head south, often venturing almost to Thorton Beach before turning around and coming back. They did this several times.
After I got gotten a good chunk of photos from the observation deck, Chris asked if we should change locations. I often try to avoid trying to do too much “chasing” - I often regret moving. But since I already had a fair number of shots, it seemed like a good gamble to try and get lower-and-closer by going down the stairs to the beach. We ended up doing those stairs a couple times, as the dolphins continued their north-then-south pattern, and my legs are really feeling it. But it was worth it.
There were only three dolphins, and I’m pretty sure I recognize, have photographed, and can ID all three of them. But I’m going to wait and see what the good folks at The Marine Mammal Center say.
The birds got in on the act too. Photo2 has a pair of Surf Scoters. And in Photo8 the California Gull decided to steal the focus (literally!) from my shot, but I kept it in because I still liked the shot, including the Grebe.
