The Mysterious Finless Porpoise

Hi Again,                

              This past week I joined a survey for the AFCD in the Po Toi and Nine Pins region of Hong Kong to track finless porpoises. I was really excited about this field survey because in all my 13 weeks here in Hong Kong I have only had one sighting of the finless porpoise so far! They are such fast and elusive creatures that I have yet to get a really good look at them.  Unfortunately during the entire Po Toi survey we didn’t have any luck spotting a porpoise, even though the Beaufort sea-state was at a level of one practically the entire time. However, once we made our way over to the Nine Pins survey area to do one transect line before calling it a day, we finally got a sighting! One of our staff saw a porpoise surface really quickly in front of our boat. We cut the motor and drifted, all of us scanning the water to try and see the porpoise surface once more. After about 10 minutes of searching we gave up hope of seeing the porpoise for a second time and continued on with the survey. Needless to say, the sighting was so fast that I didn’t get a chance to see it for myself unfortunately! However joining the AFCD field survey on that day was still well worth it; I always enjoy doing this type of field work, and the Po Toi and Nine Pins areas are just so beautiful! It was a great day!

So long for now, 

Danielle

The End

It finally comes to the end of my internship programme. Last week was so fruitful that I did some special sightings during both theodolite tracking and line-transact survey.

I was lucky to be given a chance to do my last theodolite survey in Fan Lau, which was the most amazing one that I had even done. I could even see a group of six to seven dolphins surfacing in inshore area, which was the first time that I see such large number of dolphins surfacing together. It was really exciting!  

Also, dolphins kept surfacing actively in the first two hours of the survey. Different groups merged and spited out continuously. It was a bit hard to identify which group the dolphins belong to as there were too many dolphins at the sea. 

For my last line-transact survey, it was a little pity that I had never been on effort to do line-transact survey throughout the internship programme. However, I still had an off-effort sighting during my last survey.

A special guest in this picture..guest who!

I observed a dark calf surfacing around 20 meters away from the boat and I yelled immediately after the surfacing. After we stopped the boat for further observation, the group was found to consist of a mother-and-calf pair and another dolphin. Through photo identification, the calf was found to be a famous calf, Hei Hei (希希). Its true story was written in a book called Man Vs Dolphin (豚在野希希大冒險). I was glad that I did a nice job during my last line-transact survey.

There is an end to everything, to good things as well. I feel difficult to say how much I have learnt and experienced in the past nine weeks. I have enjoyed my time here and it has been my pleasure working with the amazing staff here and the enchanting animals at sea. I will remember the time we worked together and the moments that I was excited by the fascination of dolphins.

Good Bye!!

Leslie

Approaching the End

Hi again!

                I’m fast approaching the end of my time here in HK working with the HKDCS. I can’t even begin to describe how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve enjoyed this experience. I only have three weeks left, and I honestly don’t know where the time has gone this summer! Over the next couple weeks we will be very busy conducting theodolite surveys from our three new land based stations, not to mention the workload for the AA and HKLR boat surveys is still on our schedules. I’m sure, considering how busy we will be, that my remaining time here will go by in a breeze. I will be quite sad to leave HK, the dolphins, and the wonderful people at HKDCS, therefore I will be sure to soak up and appreciate all the time I have left here!

That's it for now,

            Danielle

Weathered the Storm

            This week started out great! On Monday the HKDCS had their first theodolite tracking survey at the new land based station in Tai Ho Wan. It was a great success with two dolphin group sightings near the Brother’s Islands. It is encouraging to see the dolphins in the area because it used to be a major dolphin hotspot in past years.

            Despite this good start to the week, Tuesday, Wednesday and even today were spent indoors away from the rain and the wind. Typhoon Utor passed through the region and brought with it some heavy winds and rain. There was a T8 warning issued by the Hong Kong Observatory, and apparently the Beaufort sea-state had even reached a level of 8 on Wednesday. It’s a good thing our surveys were postponed to next week! This was my first typhoon experience in Hong Kong and I was quite impressed – the winds can get to be so strong at times!

            Although the typhoon has passed, the weather for next week still looks wet and windy. Here’s hoping we’re able to get more surveys in while staying safe and dry. I’m nearing the end of my internship with only four more weeks to go, and it’d be nice to finish off with some beautiful sunny Hong Kong weather and lots of dolphin sightings!

That’s it for now,

Danielle

A Non-skilled Theodolite Tracker

It was my routine to be a computer operator and observer when doing theodolite tracking. But last Wednesday, I was so happy to be given a chance to practice operating theodolite. I knew that it was hard to focus objects within the extremely small field of vision of eyepiece; however, it was my first time to experience how it actually is.

 

As the traffic was not heavy in Tai O, I focused on tracking those tour boats travelling in inshore area of Tai O. Every time I wanted to focus the boats, I spent a long time on adjusting the eyepiece. Even though I had found them, I still needed to pay much effort in focusing the right position of the boats. And sadly, I was not able to do it very accurately. The longer time spent and the inaccuracy of fixing positions are the most obvious differences between my work and the masterpiece of those experienced theodolite operators, Vincent, Perry and Leo. I really appreciate their skills in operating theodolite after the trial.

This experience was really a precious one in the internship programme. But it was imperfect that I was not lucky enough to track dolphins as they disappeared just before I started tracking. Hopefully I could have another chance to practice it again on the remaining days that I stay here, though it seems to be impossible.

Another small update

I’m back!

            This week at HKDCS started off great! We had some really exciting sightings during our land-based theodolite tracking surveys at the airport. Some of the sightings were even in close proximity to some very heavy marine vessel traffic and the reclaimed shoreline of the airport. It was impressive to see the dolphins co-exist in such an environment, and after this week I am hopeful for their ability to adapt to the human stressors in their habitat. However only time will tell if they can actually succeed in face of all these accumulating impacts. All of us here at HKDCS really hope so!

            Later in the week we received some rainy weather and so many of our field surveys were postponed to next week. Here’s hoping the weather clears up and we get some great fieldwork completed in August!

Until then,

Danielle