Listen for dolphins!
Dr. Bailey and her team deploy underwater microphones, called hydrophones, that listen for and record dolphin clicks. These devices allow us to collect data in any sea state or time of day.
Listen to dolphin clicks and whistles off Maryland!
Our science in action
Dolphins were more frequently detected in the Potomac River than in the Patuxent River.
In the Potomac River, dolphins were detected nearly everyday during June 2016 and 2017, with generally more detections in 2017. In 2017, dolphins were detected throughout the study period from late May to early November. Dolphins were detected for shorter periods from our pier in Solomons at the mouth of the Patuxent River, indicating they may be moving up the river to other places.
Interestingly, the dolphins were more frequently detected during the night than during the day, which may be related to their feeding behavior. We will look into this next!
We have also been looking for dolphins from the air during aerial surveys of Chesapeake Bay.
Volunteer pilots took us up and SouthWings, one of our partners on the project, organized the flights. Thank you very much to Ron Baker, Larry Petro, and Shannon Lyons!
We had beautiful views of the Bay over five flights; unfortunately we didn’t see any dolphins. Fingers crossed for 2018.
Thank you to Amber Fandel, Leila Fouda, Aran Garrod, Jamie Testa, and Jessica Wingfield.