My intership is coming to an end

I am finishing my internship with a session of land-based observation in Tai O tomorrow. It has been a great pleasure working with everyone at HKDCS/HKCRP and I thank them for their support in the past two months. I am also grateful for their friendship, without which it would not have been possible for them to tolerate my millions of questions (sorry can't help it - I love questions!). I would like to give a special shout-out to Samuel, who has been so supportive of my work in the internship programme as well as my dissertation work. Thank you very much!

In this internship, I have learnt a lot about cetaceans and local conservation work on them. I am glad to have been introduced to the wild dolphins and porpoises in a scientific way, and it definitely helped me better understand how these animals can be studied in the field. I hope everyone will do their part, however seemingly insignificant, to protect these magnificant creatures and the environment which we all live in.

Dolphins said goodbye...

It was Theresa's last day at work yesterday. We surveyed North-West and West Lantau and had 17 sightings in total. We said that the dolphins came to say goodbye to Theresa :-) It's been a great pleasure working with her and she's taught me so much in the past two months. I wish her success in the future.

We met a group of playful juveniles in the afternoon and recorded their sounds while they socialised. Sometimes they were so loud that we heard them even without putting the headphones on! Theresa had to help Vincent make the recordings, so I was put in charge of photographing dolphins for the first time. They surfaced together for most of the time so it wasn't too difficult to spot them and photograph their dorsal fins.

On another occasion, I spotted a dolphin which the two observers on shift had missed. Vincent (not on shift at the time) confirmed it as an off-effort sighting. I think I've definitely become very sensitive to the presence of dolphins now!