Pip plays with her food

Posted by Shanan Atkins on May 09, 2003 at 20:27:39:

We found a group of humpback dolphins pretty quickly in the entrance to the harbour. They were on the northern side of the North Pier, sometimes just behind backline, close to Alkantstrand’s surfers. The follow began very nicely with a spyhop that continued until half the dolphin was out of the water and ended with a lazy back-flop. There were just three dolphins in the group, resident Zipper and her calf, Pip, and Toothbrush who we’ve been seeing a lot of lately. Fortunately, their behaviour was really obvious – they were definitely feeding. They were here then there (their dive direction was erratic) but they basically stayed in the same area. Their surfacings were mostly independent of the other dolphins in the group and uncoordinated and they were quite widespread, i.e. not all in a tight-knit group. Their dives were steep and intensity levels were high, they were very obviously chasing something. After about 30 minutes, intensity levels dropped a bit, they were no longer chasing so fiercely.
Over the next 10 minutes we watched something rather unusual. Pip, the juvenile, was playing with his/her food – just like a cat playing with a mouse. She’d come to the surface with the fish in her mouth. She tossed the fish around and slapped it against the surface and then she’d dive, only to surface a couple of minutes later to toss the fish around again. She seemed to open her mouth wide, release the fish and then catch it again quickly. We have seen other dolphins “playing with their food” but it was always quite brief. Next thing, we saw Pip clamp her jaws shut a couple of times, she gave a little flukes-up dive and that was the last we saw of them.
To see the pictures that accompany this newsletter, visit our website’s news page http://www.dolphins.org.za/news.htm

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