Tales from the lagoon ~ Reunited with Uncle Larry!

Tales from the Lagoon~ Episode- Reunited with Uncle Larry!

When I first started photographing the dolphins in 2018, I noticed 3 of them had numbers on their dorsal fins. 918, 910 and 968.

This was a first time I had seen numbered dolphins and wasn't sure what it meant, so I called my friend in the dolphin world who was able to get in touch with the original researcher. I learned that numbers on the dorsal fin is the same as a bird having a bracelet on their foot when they leave the hospital.

The researcher told her the dolphins were part of a health assessment in 2004, and at that time were all healthy males. In 2004, 968 was approximately 25 years old, 910 and 918 were around 23 years old.

918 is who I call Happy Buddha and the first dolphin who spent a lot of time with me. He is the first one to interact with the camera and show me we could communicate. I haven't seen him in a while, he is around 40 years old now.

910 is called Maverick. When I first met him he was with Happy Buddha or hanging by himself. He is a great athlete and gentle.

968 looks like 963 because part of his number has worn off. His name is Uncle Larry because he was the male dolphin hanging with a maternity pod which included baby Indy and his mom. I didn’t get to spend much time with Uncle Larry so when he showed up today I was so excited. He is probably around 42 years old now! I’m excited to see if he comes back again….

Stay tuned for more tales!

PS- The previous post is a dolphin gender reveal and the one before that is the sunrise for Tuesday. :)

You can see the number has faded over time

The number is quite faded in the past couple years.

Grabbing a fish before saying hello

The pelicans have been fun lately too!