Thursday, 17 October 2013

Final spurt


The last two weeks of my internship with the HKDCS are dawning and I look back at some busy weeks.

We finished our surveys at Tai Ho Wan, which is a good thing. They really were an important and time-consuming part of our effort in the last 1.5 months. In the last weeks, we also sighted quite a few dolphins a little further out around the Brother Islands. This area is by no means less busy than closer to shore, thus it is surprising, but at the same time promising, that we still see dolphins there.

I've also spent quite some time on the acoustic boat. We managed to get some very good recordings. I even heard croaker fish! It is shocking, though, how much noise some of these boats and construction vessels produce. Imagine an animal that is so highly reliant on acoustics for orientation having to cope with such an environment! Just again, I find it really amazing that we still see dolphins in the area under these conditions. And it makes me worry about the many dolphins we see in West Lantau, once the bridge construction really starts.

One survey brought me further south to South Lantau.  I again didn't see any of the mysterious porpoises, but it really is such a beautiful area. We even saw a sea eagle and what felt like thousands of little fish jumping out of the water. Nature can be so amazing!

Winter is slowly starting here in HK. While temperatures are still high (and it thus is more like "winter"), we have days with extremely poor visibility due to winds from the continent. I've been told that's the usual weather during winter. Considering it being caused by pollution from the mainland, it's actually really shocking to see the extent.

Stay tuned for what is yet to come.
Anke

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