June 27, 2012 Whale Watches

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Krill

9 am trip: Written by NECWA intern Lisa and Krill 

Despite the rough seas offshore, we had a wonderful day out on Stellwagen Bank. Once we got to mid-bank, we picked up Boomerang and her calf of this year. Both mom and calf flaked out right next to the boat so we were able to get some great photos.

Soon we picked up another humpback whale, but we could not identify who this individual was. We stayed with this unknown whale for about 10 minutes and then moved on. We will continue to look over our humpback catalogs to try and determine the identify of this animal.

Our next sighting was a humpback named Hancock. Hancock is a female who has been seen on Stellwagen Bank over the past few days. Hancock was creating a bubble net, an effective feeding technique that helps the whale concentrate the bait fish prior to lunging.

We also picked up a fourth humpback that turned out to be Freckles. Freckles is an adult female who has had 4 calves in the past. However, this year she is without a calf and was seen feeding deep on her own.

All in all a great trip with lots of wonderful sightings of endangered humpback whales. Check out the video that Krill took during the trip for it provides a nice overview of what we saw this morning.

2 pm trip: Krill 

We headed back to the mid part of Stellwagen Bank and picked up Orbit, an adult female, who was feeding deep but still using bubble nets. Orbit has first seen in 1979 and has had 9 calves since that time. She is even a grandmother!

We moved on to watch a finback whale that was subsurface feeding in the same area as Orbit. Finback whales are typically fast and sleek and this animal was no exception. The finback was circling as it surfaced to breathe, a tell-tale sign that it was feeding deep. 

Finback whale. 

After watching this finback for a few minutes, we moved on and picked up Scylla and calf. The calf was a bit frisky and was tail breaching as mom surfaced beside it. Not sure what got the calf so excited, but it was fun to watch. 

Scylla's calf of this year. 

Scylla feeding at the surface. 

Our next sighting was an adult female named Freckles. Like Orbit, Freckles is a mature adult female who has had calves in the past. Freckles was also feeding deep upon our approach and we noticed that she used bubble nets a few times to help her concentrate the bait. 

Hancock and the unknown humpback from our morning trip were also feeding deep in this same area. And we had Boomerang and calf once again. On this afternoon' trip, we noticed quite an increase in our seabirds offshore including Wilson's storm petrels, sooty shearwaters, greater shearwaters, Cory's shearwaters and Northern gannets (juveniles).

Here is video that I collected during the trip. Again it gives a nice overview as to what we saw during our time offshore.