May 28, 2012 Whale Watch

9 am am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Memorial Day - Joanne

We had a wonderful Memorial Day offshore, light winds and calm seas. We had some fog in the morning, but it burned off by the afternoon when the wind changed directions, bringing in a cool breeze. Whales were numerous throughout the day, with surface feeding and active behaviors throughout the day.  In the morning, we traveled to the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank and spent time with humpbacks, minkes and one finback whale, as well as several grey seals and dozens of birds.  The humpback whales were surface feeding, blowing bubbles and kicking.  We could see the ‘rain drop’ appearance of the sand lance on the surface of the water. 

Our trip ended with a series of chin breaches and a perfect full spinning head breach from a 4 year old whale, which will be named in June during the annual whale naming.  As we departed, the young whale continued to flipper slap, and roll, giving us the full spectrum of aerials.

In the afternoon, we traveled just a mile or two farther east and found the ‘mother load’ of feeding whales—over 3 dozen individual humpback whales were in the area, with another 10 or so a few miles to the east and even south of us.  In addition, we had a dozen minke whales mixed up in the feeding frenzy, along with birds in close association with the feeding whales and several grey seals.

Bubble nets, bubble clouds, kick feeding, lunge feeding were surrounding our boat, at any one time you could easily see 15 whales at the surface simultaneously.  

Highlights included seeing:

•         5 (possibly 6) mother and calf pairs, including Anchor and her calf, her were first seen on the breeding ground and documented by researches there in early 2012
•         Nine of the top 50 humpbacks seen on Stellwagen Bank, including Wizard, Midnight, Anchor, Division, Fracture, Rapier, Tornado, Tunguska and Wyoming
•         Shards charging with fast paced lunges through the water continuously--A slightly different style of feeding than the majority of whales were displaying;
•         Salt’s daughter, Mostaza and granddaughter, Etchasketch
•        Midnight, a mature female humpback,  first seen in 1979 and seen every years since, although typically only spend an average of 10 days on Stellwagen Bank each season, was seen blowing the fine bubbles she’s recognized for with her feeding style.
•        Ventisca and Wizard-- still feeding together, having been associated together for almost 2 months, rolling over and showing us their bellies on almost every feeding surfacing
•         Perseid—who gave us our first fourth generation whale when she had her first calf, making Compass a great grandmother & Palette a grandmother!
•       Trident’s 08 calf, who was struck by a boat and is missing half of its right tail fluke
•        Three of the tagged whales from the satellite tagging project, including: Draco, Etchasketch and Fracture, including documentation of the tag sight for information on the healing/impact of such tags

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And the first sightings this year of several humpbacks not previously documented this season, including: Spirit, Gunslinger, Belly, Shards, and Draco

Anchor and calf
Rapier and calf
Pisces and calf
Dusky and calf
Tornado and calf
Cajun
Tongs
Division
Perseid
Centipede
Circus
Belly
Ventisca
Wizard
Eruption
Ganesh
Shards
Entropy
Mystery
Fracture
Pogo
Midnight
Blackhole
Draco
Etchasketch (Salt’s granddaughter)
Canopy
Trident's 08 calf
Compass's 08 calf
Wyoming
Spirit
Mostaza (Salt's Daughter)
Tunguska
Gunslinger