My name is Seán O’Callaghan, and I am a PhD student based at the Marine and Freshwater Research Centre (MFRC) at the Altantic Technological University (ATU) in Galway in the west of Ireland. The focus of my PhD is the sperm whale but being from Ireland we don’t regularly see this species alive, not because they aren’t around but because their habitat along the continental shelf is far offshore (75 – 370 km out). So, with the chances of seeing and studying sperm whales alive in Irish waters being low, I have migrated to where the whales are most accessible in the Northeast Altantic, off Norway and of course the Azores.
Sperm Whale Scale is the name of my project, and it focuses on understanding the life history of the species in the Northeast Atlantic from the breeding grounds up to the foraging grounds. Measuring live whales is a key component of the project but its not very feasible to use a measuring tape on a moving whale so instead I fly a drone and take photos and video of the whales from overhead! The technique I use is called aerial photogrammetry which makes it possible to extract measurement estimates from photos and videos of animals.
I arrived back to São Miguel to help with fieldwork for the Azores Delphis Project and to try and collect some data for Sperm Whale Scale at the start of September. I had spent the summer guiding with whale watching company Whale2Sea at Andenes in Northern Norway some 300 km north of the Arctic Circle.
Male sperm whales use the nearshore Bleik canyon to forage in so there was plenty of opportunities for me to gather data on the whales there but then it was time to work with whales in the south off São Miguel! My time of arrival wasn’t great because Hurricane Danielle was approaching and prevented any opportunities for us to go to sea with high winds and a big swell during the storm and after it had passed. Last Sunday the weather improved massively after a few weeks on land and we were able to go to sea and collect data.
The possibility for me to join Picos de Aventura came about on Wednesday which was without question the best day of fieldwork I have had to date during my PhD! Female sperm whales along with juveniles and calves behave quite differently to the males while on the surface so it gave me far more options to gather data from multiple animals while they rested at the surface. It was very sweet to see calves nursing with females and seemingly “piggyback” as the females swam just below the surface! Watch this moment here.
The research trip in the afternoon was a huge success thanks to the team from Picos de Aventura who went back out to sea with me to help me gather even more data from different whales to the morning trip. I have never collected so much data and it will take some time to process it all but my first day gathering sperm whale data in the Azores will not be easily forgotten!!
All drone photo’s and video were taken under licence DRAM/LEMASM/2022/004.
