Dolphin makes a kill

A bottle-nosed dolphin (tursiops truncatus) flips a fish out of the water in Galway Bay this morning (larger version here). The dolphin had churned up the water beforehand – you can see the circular pattern in the water. The dolphin flipped the fish out of the water twice before presumably eating it. (Update: the fish could have been leaping to escape the dolphin. In that case, he only leaped twice).

I love wildlife and nature programmes. I particularly love the photography, and I enjoy the behind-the-scenes accounts of the deprivations that cameramen suffer in order to get great shots. This isn’t one of them.

This morning, something that looked suspiciously like a summer’s day announced itself in Galway. The sun shone, and the sky was blue, save for a few cotton-puff clouds. It was easy to be suspicious – we’ve had hailstorms, high winds and heavy rain since Thursday (and even after a great day today – the weather forecast predicts temperatures to drop close to zero tonight).

We decided to go down to Salthill Promenade for a late  breakfast. The place was jammed with people, all enjoying the weather and the view. WE ordered coffee and bagels and went out to one of the observation points to eat. Just as we were finishing up, I noticed people staring into the Bay. The dolphin was back!

Now, before we left the house, my other half mocked me for packing so much camera gear for a trip for breakfast. Hah ! (My triumph might have been more complete if she hadn’t brought along a camera of her own, anyway).

I fitted my Canon 100-400 zoom lens to my 40D, simply because the 40D has the capability to take a burst of pictures very quickly (6.5 pictures per second). This capability was very useful since the dolphin would only break the surface for a second or so. Of course, I ended up with about 300 pictures of a black triangle against a grey background. Most of the time, one could only see the fin of the dolphin. The power of the zoom wasn’t much use, actually. It was nearly impossible to predict where the dolphin would breach the surface, so I had to use the zoom at the wide end (i.e. at 100mm) to have any hope of seeing where the dolphin would surface.

Bottle-nose dolphin breaks the surface in Galway Bay, a few hundred yards offshore from Salthill Promenade (larger version here).

A couple of times, it would almost completely break the surface, after speed a couple of hundred yards across the water. Alas,  I didn’t get a chance to snap it  in mid-flight.  A guy with a Nikon set-up was standing near me rattling off shots too – I’ll have to check Flickr or Pix.ie to see how he got on.

There’s a lot to be said to be able to see a great wildlife scene while sipping a cappuchino and taking in the sun on the Prom – it’s not exactly hardship.