Whale Watching Trip May 27, 2010

9 am Whale Watch trip - Krill

We had a cold and cloudy start to our day. The temperature was quite cool considering the 90 degree weather from the day before. We headed offshore and after leaving Plymouth Harbor, we had a good 3 foot swell from the SE with light NE winds. Luckily the winds died down and so did the swell by the end of the trip making the ride home quite nice.

We found 6 to 8 humpbacks on the east side of Stellwagen Bank. However, it was difficult to get close to any of these animals for they were staying down for long periods of time and coming up for only one or two breaths.

This erratic surfacing behavior made it difficult, if not impossible, to get any good looks at any of these humpback whales. As our captain talked on the radio with the other whale watching companies out of Provincetown and Barnstable, it seemed that everyone was experiencing the same problems. So in frustration, we decided that it would be better to leave this area and continue our trip to the east to find whales that were spending more time at the surface.

A few miles to the east of Stellwagen Bank, we found another small cluster of humpback whales. We were finally able to get close to a pair who turned out to be Tracer and Cardhu.

Cardu was logging (resting) at the surface for a few minutes during each surfacing. Tracer seemed to be more active as it decided to come over to our vessel and give us a quick pass by. The students and teachers who had chartered the boat were thrilled to finally see these animals up close and personal.

Both Cardu and Tracer have black ventral tail patterns. However even these individuals can be identified by comparing the size and shape of their dorsal fin as well as scalloping pattern on the trailing edge of the fluke. Cardu has a small bulge on the left side of the fluke along the trailing edge. Tracer has a circular cut on the left side of the fluke. By being able to identify individual humpback whales within this population, scientists are able to learn about their life history and ecology. So there is no need to mark or tag the whales in any way. All you have to do is photograph and compare.

Few seabirds except common terns and gulls. We did have one Northern gannet (juvenile) in the area where the whales were feeding deep.

2 pm Whale Watch - Leah

This afternoon's trip was a gorgeous one. The sea was calm, the breeze was fair, and the temperature was excellent. We had about nine humpback whales out on the bank today. On our way out we thought we were going to get a show seeing some breaching in the distance but then we'd get out there and poof they were all gone. They were rather scarce after that, we deduced that they must be feeding deep today.

They'd come up for a breathe and disappear into the ocean for upwards of ten minutes.

As we were heading out, there were some whales feeding way in the distance. We could tell this because there was a group of birds hovering over the bubble clouds the whales were producing trying to get a bite of what they were corralling at the surface. We didn't have enough time to go look at them but we also did have a whale that kept surfacing right next to us every time we thought the coast was clear for us to head home. We were able to ID one whale with a hooked dorsal fin (see image below). That humpback whale is Nile and she is a female who has successfully raised a number of calves.

We did have a bunch of Shearwaters off shore with us today and they kept dive bombing the surface of the water to get to the fish swimming under the water. And we also did have a minke that kept swimming around the boat, and kept surprising us swimming in all different directions making it hard for us to spot where the whale would show up next.

Whale Watching Trip May 26, 2010

2 pm Whale Watch - Fred

A rather summery day offshore - we had light and variable winds, bright sun through hazy high clouds, and quite calm seas, although there was a gentle 1-to-2-foot swell out of the SE when we were out beyond the SE Corner of Stellwagen Bank, which is where we spent our time watching whales.

It seemed as if there was no strong concentration of whales anywhere on the southern end of Stellwagen - they all seemed to be scattered about. We ended up enjoying watching three humpback whales far out to the E, after taking a quick look at a minke whale first.

We started approaching two close together humpbacks, that we later identified as Fracture and Barb, who both breached together once, did a bit of lob-tailing, and then started flippering, lifting their long white flippers up and slapping them down on the water.

As we were easing our way toward Fracture and Barb we had to come to a stop, since a third whale, identified as Tracer, was also "in the neighborhood", and was on a slow path that would have placed her traveling across our path (and, of course, whales have the "right of way", both under federal law and under common sense).

As we waited, dead in the water, Tracer turned slightly, dove, and surfaced next to our stern, and then circled around and under the boat. After swimming slowly directly under our bow, Tracer started heading off toward the SE. Once Tracer was away from us, we were able to once again "tip-toe" over toward Fracture and Barb (two males). By this time they had stopped "showing off" and had started moving toward the East.

On our way back we had a brief look at three other humpbacks, another minke whale, and a nice look at a cooperative basking shark. Unfortunately, we also spotted a large "birthday party" balloon floating in the water, which we retrieved from the water before it could harm any animal out there.

It is unfortunate that many members of our species think it is "fun" to release helium balloons into the air -- however, such "fun" objects turn quite deadly when they lose enough helium to settle onto water, where they often end up in the stomachs of many marine animals, where they cannot be digested, and where they instead seriously interfere with normal digestion.

So, we did remove this particular balloon from the water, but it makes a lot more sense for our species to prevent releasing such deadly balloons in the first place. This is just another example that illustrates why ~WE~ are The Most Dangerous Species of Animal on This Planet.

Whale Watching Trips May 25, 2010

9 am Whale Watch trip - Krill

Our charter was running a bit behind schedule, but they boarded quickly and we headed out of Plymouth Harbor for offshore waters. We passed over the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank hoping to find some humpback whales, but did not see any animals in that area. We did pick up a large finback whale who seemed to be moving through the area.

Close to the SE corner, we found a small cluster of humpbacks surface feeding. We had great looks at kick feeding, lunging at the surface and straining. At one point, it was difficult knowing which direction to look as we were surrounded by these animals.

One pair turned out to be Anchor and Blackhole. Both whales were coordinating their movements as they fed in unison. Blackhole did all the kick feeding while both whales seemed to be making the bubble net. Then they would lunge mouth open in the middle of bubbles and birds.

We then picked up two single humpbacks who were also feeding in the same area as Anchor and Blackhole. We were not able to ID the first single since we never got a good look at the tail. However, we did ID the second single who turned out to be a whale named Pox. Like Blackhole, Pox has a black ventral tail pattern. Often, these black tails are the hardest to identify and often you have to examine the trailing edge of the flukes to determine the identity of the individual.

Unfortunately it was time for us to head home. But all the school kids onboards were happy and exited about the sightings for the day.

9 am Whale Watch trip - Leah

Today was a beautiful day out on the water, only slightly cloudy and very calm seas. We started our trip on Stellwagen Bank pretty close to the tip of the cape. We did see a few blows from the whales but once we got to the area where they were they would disappear.

]The first two whales we saw were very low profile and amongst these humpbacks we did have a Minke whale swimming a circle around our boat. Then we moved up north to see if we could find a larger group that we knew were somewhere in the area.

We did find a group of 6 humpback whales that we got to spend the rest of our trip watching. These whales were feeding all over this area. There were bubble clouds all around our boat. One bubble cloud was right next to our boat and you could see the sand lance jumping out of the water trying to avoid being engulfed by the large mouth sneaking up from below them. Also we got to see a little tail slapping and some flippering, but mostly feeding and straining there food out of the water. Of the six whales in this group a few were identified and there names are Wizard, Gumdrop and Gunslinger.

Whale Watching Trip May 23, 2010

2 pm Whale Watch trip - Leah

This afternoons trip started off beautifully when we left the harbor, it was nice and clear. However, we had a hard time getting to and finding the whales due to the fog that rolled in and blanketed our view of finding them easily. We did try many tactics to find them, when you can't see you have to use your other senses so we listened for the whales exhalations to see if that would help us locate the whales. And for such a foggy trip offshore the water was very calm and it wasn't to breezy.

Then since our looking and listening wasn't working to well we got in contact with some other whale watching boats and we finally pick up a few whales. It was a little to foggy to be able to get any clear photos of the whales tails but we did manage to identify one of the whales as Broomball.

Broomball is fairly easy to identified, unfortunately based off of some propeller scars on the animals tail stock. Once we did find these whales we did get to see some examples of feeding behaviors, through the eerie fog we got to see an example of a bubble cloud and the animals were charging at the surface.

Even though it was hard to find the whales it was quite the rewarding experience to finally see them sneakily come into view in and out of the fog. They are just like whale ghosts showing up and disappearing just as quickly.

Whale Watching Trip May 23, 2010

9 am Whale Watch trip - Krill

The marine forecast was predicting fog in the morning and we were happy to see that the fog did not materialize. However, once on Stellwagen Bank, we did notice a fog bank heading our way. Luckily, the fog stayed further offshore all the way up to the end of our trip.

We had at least 20 to 25 humpbacks surface feeding and engaged in active behaviors on the SE corner of the bank. Some were feeding or associating in pairs or in small groups. Many were on their own which is normal for large baleen whales.

We witnessed a really amazing interaction between two whales, Tracer and Thumper. These individuals started to become quite active as they came close to each other. Tracer started breaching which seemed to get Thumper all excited for Thumper started breaching as well. Tracer then started lobtailing and Thumper responded by flipperslapping.

Finally these two humpbacks got together and continued these very active surface behaviors. Then, as if on cue, both whales started feeding together creating bubble nets to help trap the fish.

Our last sighting was of Broomball who was also surface feeding. Broomball has scars on the dorsal tail stock indicating a past vessel strike. This is a dangerous area for a whale to encounter a boat since the dorsal nerve cord runs very close to the dorsal surface of the body. Luckly, Broomball survived and is doing well. But scars like these remind us of the dangers these animals face each and every day.

All in all a fabulous day offshore. We were able to identify these humpback whales: Manta, Barb, Etch-a-sketch, Tracer, Thumper, Ventisca, Venom, Xylem and Broomball. We are still seeing hundreds of gulls offshore but few seabirds. Lots of bait at the surface and at depth.

Whale Watching Trip May 22, 2010

9 am and 2 pm trips - Fred

It was an overcast day with a SE breeze -- sometimes that can mean damp conditions and poor visibility, but luckily we had dry air and excellent visibility all day. The wind was lighter in the AM than in the PM, and the SE sea increased from 1-2 feet in the AM to 2-3 feet in the PM. We never noticed any swell. It was a good day for whale watching for the crew and passengers aboard the Tails of the Sea.

On both trips we traveled to the SE Corner of Stellwagen Bank to observe a couple dozen humpbacks and a couple minke whales, but that's where the similarities between the two trips end. On the AM trip every whale we saw was actively surface feeding on sand lance in a relatively small area (about a square mile or so). On the PM trip there was almost no feeding apparent, the whales were scattered more widely, and several of the humpbacks exhibited non-feeding active behaviors (breaches, lobtailing, and flippering mostly).

The most significant observation occurred on the AM trip, where we saw an adult female humpback whale named Venom, who has been seen by many a Massachusetts whale watcher since she was born to Cardhu in 1996 (Venom was Cardhu's sixth known calf - Cardhu in turn has been seen in Massachusetts since 1981). We saw Venom feeding, apparently quite normally and quite actively (employing kick feeding, where a whale slaps the surface of the water with its tail flukes, and then dives to catch the fish that may have been stunned or confused by the slap's percussion and/or the cloud of bubbles resulting from the slap) along with some of the other humpbacks. However, what was very, very different this time was that Venom was missing the outer third of her right tail fluke, likely due to trauma of some sort.

Whether Venom's right fluke injury is the result of contact with a ship's propeller or not I do not know, at least at the time I am writing this. However, the fairly straight wound is unlikely to have been the result of "natural causes" - most likely the injury is the result of contact with The Most Dangerous Species on This Planet, and seeing such a beautiful animal maimed for life was sobering to all aboard our vessel. Sure, "accidents can happen", as we all know, but many so-called accidents can be prevented, too. There are definite rules that all boats are required by federal law to observe while in the vicinity of whales, and the possibility that Venom's injury may have been caused by careless or clueless human behavior on the water is very, very sad.

I do wish for as complete a recovery as is possible for Venom, who fortunately will most likely survive and continue to grace Stellwagen Bank with her presence for many years to come.