July 3, 2012 Whale Watches

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Tammy

This morning’s trip report was written by NECWA intern, Lisa Burke, who collected data on this trip. Thanks Lisa!

Today's 9 am whale watch was perfect for people interested in all types of marine wildlife. This is because instead of seeing mostly humpbacks, we were able to get some amazing looks at three different species of whales along with seals and seabirds.

As we made our way to the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank, the sky was almost completely blue and the wind was only a couple of knots at the very most so it was perfect whale watching weather. The first animal we stopped to see was a finback whale. This whale is often called a few different names, some being the fin whale or a finner but the most interesting is "the greyhound of the sea". The finback whale is called this because it is super fast and can out swim most boats, including the Tails of the Sea! 

Perhaps this is why we only stayed with this animal for a few minutes before moving on to a humpback whale. We were able to identify this whale as Compass' 2008 calf. This whale was coming to the surface briefly and then going on some deep dives. This whale does not have an official name because scientists and naturalists wait about 3- 4 years for the pattern on the fluke to become permanent in order to think up an appropriate name. Because Compass’ 2008 calf is now around this age, a name will be voted on for her this summer. 

Our next sighting consisted of about 5-6 minke whales along with some solitary gray seals. We were very fortunate to have a close approach by one brave minke whale. This is not typical minke behavior. We tend to give humpbacks more attention because they spend more time at the surface so it was really neat to spend more time with a minke whale. After seeing another gray seal, we ended our trip with a quick (so quick, we didn't get pictures!) sighting of another humpback. We had to head back to the dock before this whale resurfaced but overall, we had a unique and fun-filled trip out on the water!

2 pm trip: Tammy

Here is video from this trip. The video is of Loon and shows just how active this whale was.

We had a perfect afternoon on the water; sun, calm seas, unlimited visibility and amazing wildlife! Our trip started with a group of 30-40 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, including adults and calves!  These dolphins were bow riding, wake surfing, swimming all around our boat and it was so exciting to see them.  

As we continued travelling east across Stellwagen Bank we had sightings of 6-10 minke whales. Everyone onboard had excellent looks at minke whales all around our boat, which is unusual given the elusive behavior of minkes! 

Humpback whale Loon - spinning head breach.

We then picked up a single humpback whale named Putter. We observed green bubbles rising to the surface, indicating that Putter was feeding deep and using bubbles to corral the bait. Putter then became more active and started tail breaching and inverted lob tailing. 

Loon inverted lobtailing.

Also in this area was another humpback whale named Loon and this whale was showing us more active behavior! We saw several amazing spinning head breaches as well as chin breaches, tail breaches and inverted lobtailing from Loon.

Curious, young gray seal. 

Two gray seals also made appearances on our trip. The first seal was a young animal and it was super cute! This seal was curiously looking at us just as we were looking at it. This seal swam under our boat several times as it checked us out and we had fantastic looks at this seal.

Check out this video of the seal and the Atlantic white-sided dolphins seen on this trip.



A few minutes later we had another quick sighting of a gray seal who was resting at the surface for a minute before diving again.  We ended our trip with another handful of minke whales and two more humpback whales named Forceps and Springboard. Another amazing day on the water!