WILD MONTH

1 | BOTTLENOSE DOLPHIN

High jinks

Late summer and autumn are a busy time for bottlenose dolphins. “After a 13-month gestation, the females give birth at the end of August into September,” says Charlie Phillips, a field officer for Whale and Dolphin Conservation based at the Moray Firth on the east coast of Scotland. “Around this time, the dolphins’ main food source here switches from migratory salmon to shoaling mackerel coming in from the North Sea. The females are glad of fish like