Early Christmas Present

'Twas the Friday before Christmas, and all through my workplace
People were pushing hard to get done, 'fore Santa showed his face
When suddenly a beep meant that all works were stopped
as a remarkable email in my inbox was dropped:

"There's a dolphin in the marina"

Our office faces out onto the waters of the channel and a rather picturesque marina and for some reason a large bottlenosed dolphin had come to visit. I had a quick glance from the office conference room



and then wandered out for a closer look. Please excuse picture quality  - the zoom on my mobile phone camera (yeah - that's how close he was) isn't great



News spread through town pretty quick and soon there were teachers surrounded by nursery kids (aka kindergartners in Americano), office workers and delivery guys all peering over the harbour walls. Amusingly he was almost invisible for big chunks of time as he'd swim under one row of boats to another openwater space - the trick to finding him (which I was able to do without sight making me appear as some sort of dolphin whisperer) was listening for his breaths.



A wonderful end to a wonderful wildlife year for me of bears, cats, whales and big fish. Oh that reminds me - I still owe you some cats and big fish.....