5/25/12 1400WW blog
Today was a fantastic afternoon of whale watching. We had sightings of minke whales, a finback whale and 15-20 humpback whales. Many of the humpback whales were feeding alone or in pairs. We spent quite awhile with two humpback whales named Fracture and Pogo who were producing bubble nets and lunge feeding at the surface. Other humpback whales were kick-feeding, or using their tails to stun their prey.
We were also so lucky to have sightings of two mother-calf pairs: Anchor and calf and another unidentified mother and her calf. This second calf was being quite playful at the surface while mom was down on longer dives. It was so exciting to see this calf rolling, diving and breaching! The calf did four spinning head breaches, a behavior that we only see on about 10% of our whale watching trips. It was an amazing end to our trip.
As we headed home, we examined our photos to see if we could determine the identify of the second mother. We finally were able to identify this animal as a mom named Dusky. So great to meet Dusky's new calf who was obviously very playful and full of energy.
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Humpbacks identified include: Fracture, Pogo, Entropy, Anchor and calf, Centipede, Cajun and Dusky and calf. For seabirds, we had Northern gannets and sooty shearwaters. We also saw laughing gulls and common terns.
