Some individuals patrol the perimeter of the school, leaping and belly-flopping and flailing the surface of the water with their tails to keep the school together. When they find a school of fish or squid, they work together to corral the prey into a tight “meat ball,” before taking turns to move in and feed. As they travel, they scan the sea with their echolocation apparatus. Like most oceanic dolphins, duskies feed co-operatively.
#Dolphins using fish heads Patch
They are medium-sized dolphins-up to two metres in length-and have particularly striking faces: a short thick black snout, grey-black eye patch and mouths that look like a pair of smiling pursed lips pushed up towards the eyes by the neat symmetry of their white chins. Duskies are southern hemisphere dolphins which frequent areas that are cooled by circumpolar currents: the southern tips of America, Africa and Australia, as well as New Zealand from East Cape southwards. Here the commonest cetacean species, and the most acrobatic, is the dusky dolphin. Here nutrient-rich water from the Southern Ocean rises close to shore, supporting massive plankton production and offering a banquet of kahawai, mackerel and squid to the cetaceans (whales and dolphins) which gather offshore. Nearby, watching from his runabout, is skipper and local tour operator Brent McFadden in the distance, the duskies’ curved backs are rhythmically cresting the swells-a gentle finale to today’s mercurial “symphony of the dolphins.” I burst back into the sunlight, suck in a deep breath and look around. I long to swim after them, deeper into that emerald city, but there’s an urgent oxygen debt to be paid at the surface. My lungs ache for air, and the pod of duskies begins to move away. They are so close now I can reach out and touch them, each one unique down to the nicks and scars on its fins. What they make of such garbled sound I don’t know, but the more inquisitive ones begin to sprint in tight circles, forcing me to spin on my axis to keep eye contact. Here a dolphin’s head acts as a living sonar system, a kind of ultrasound scan that sends out simultaneous signals on different frequencies, and enables the animal to build up an acoustic map of its environment, communicate with the rest of the group and, possibly, stun its prey. I have entered their world, an acoustic universe as sensitive and nuanced as ours is visual.
I revel in the blast of white noise that crackles like an excited Geiger counter, sensing the hollow cavern of my lungs and the solid orb of my head.
Then, etched at the edge of visibility, the first black-and-white heads appear, darting towards me, peeling off at tangents, transforming the water into an animated labyrinth of sleek striped bodies.ĭrawn by their tightly choreographed dancing I dive down, twisting and spiralling in imitation as they circle around me, tilt their heads and level their large black eyes at mine.Ī trio of quivering beaks emit a cascade of clicks which scan the surrounding ocean, speeding up as they zero in on my body. Written by Michael Szabo Photographed by Roger Grace
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