July 1, 2012 Whale Watches

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Krill

Adult Norther Gannet

9 am trip: 

We had quick looks at a few humpback whales including Orbit before we found Tracer and Seal feeding on the east side of Stellwagen Bank.

Here is some video from our morning trip. The star of the show was Tracer who was first seen in 2002. Tracer was kick feeding at the surface and was really putting on a show for our passengers onboard. We also had some quick looks at another feeding humpback whale named Seal.

Humpback whale Seal

Seal was feeding in the same area as Tracer and these two humpbacks even joined to feed together for a few minutes. Then they parted like ships in the night!

Here is a list of seabirds and gulls that were seen offshore during the morning trip. Thanks to Trudy and Peter for this information as they are volunteers with the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and are part of a team that is helping to survey the seabirds offshore. 

Species	Count
Northern Gannet	6
Wilson's Storm-Petrel	11
Cory's Shearwater	63
Great Shearwater	23
Sooty Shearwater	2
Unidentified Shearwater	6
Double-crested Cormorant	66
Great Black-backed Gull	9
Herring Gull	95
Laughing Gull	22
Unidentified Gull	119
Common Tern	4
Osprey	1
Tree Swallow	1
Total	428

2 pm trip: from Krill and NECWA intern Kate Davis

We left the dock in the middle of this sweltering heat wave and soon were feeling very refreshed by the breeze coming off the water. While it was a bit tougher finding whales on this morning’s trip, we quickly found a mother and calf pair and several other blows in the area. This mom and calf were staying under for quite awhile and would pop up in the distance so we played a game of tag for a while until our captain decided to leave these whales and try to find some who were being more active.

We happened to find a whale named Orbit who was also taking long dives so we didn’t stay with her for too long, but we got to see a nice fluke out dive. In about the same area we saw a whale named Columbia, another mature female, who also fluked out, but it was looking like all our whales were playing coy as she went down for a deep dive as well.

Just when it looked like we were only going to get some brief sightings of these whales, we happened to find the mother and calf pair from the beginning of today’s trip and boy was that calf active! The winds had picked up and there was a storm pretty close to us with obvious rain and we think the changing weather may have contributed to the calf’s more active behavior.  This calf breached, spy-hopped, rolled, flipper slapped, and got very close to the boat, giving us quite a spectacular show. 

Perhaps the calf was just being very playful, or perhaps it was getting agitated due to the approaching storm. 

Here is a video from this trip and the majority of the video is this playful and exuberant calf. What fun to be a baby humpback whale!