August 26, 2012 Whale Watches

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Joanne and Krill 

9 am and 2 pm Trips: Joanne

Humpbacks remained quite numerous on Stellwagen Bank throughout the day, with some feeding in the morning and aerials in the afternoon.  

We continued to see mainly older, mature whales, along with 4 cow/calf pairs.  We had some dramatic feeding, including kick feeding, bubble cloud feeding, and lunging.  Etchasketch was the most consistent and a good look at her feeding finally revealed what we had speculated the last few days—a different food source—mackerel. Typically on Stellwagen, we see sand eels, but the behavior of the whales and the age class suggested something different. Many of the naturalists from different companies had been discussing such observations and we finally saw the prey to confirm it. Small mackerel like what the whales feed upon is usually found in offshore, northerly waters. Whales get a little more bang for the buck eating it, but it takes more energy. 

Later in the day, we had many aerials, the most consistent from Dome’s calf. It breached repeatedly, as well as flippered right next to our boat.  Dome was much more low profile than her young calf.  We saw lobtailing and breaching from Glostick, as well as sporadic breaching from different whales in the area.

We also saw minkes and harbor seals, along with shearwaters, gulls and terns.

Humpback ids included:
Nile, Sirius, Ember, Dyad, Columbia, Glostick, Hornbill, Etchasketch, Freckles, Leonid, Kohoutek, Pipette
Boomerang + calf, Scylla + calf, Dome + calf, Pinball + calf

2 pm Whale Watch - Krill 

Dome's calf doing a tail breach. 

We had a beautiful day offshore as we headed to the mid part of Stellwagen Bank. We saw quite a few blows scattered throughout the area. Our first sighting was a pair of humpbacks that we identified as 

Dome and calf. Both mom and calf were traveling to the east and didn't spend much time of the surface.

Ventral tail pattern of Dome.
The black circular mark on the right
is why this whale was given this name. 

 We moved on and picked up a trio that included Columbia. One of the whales in this group was a bit active as it flipper slapped off our bow. But this active behavior didn't continue so we moved on. 

Kohoutek surfacing off the port side. 

Left flank of Kohoutek. Notice the cut off dorsal fin. 

Fluke out dive by Kohoutek.

A humpback whale surfaced just off our starboard bow and was heading our way. We got some great looks at this whale and noticed that the dorsal fin had been cut off by a boat. We identified this whale as Kohoutek, a male that was first seen in 1978. As Kohoutek passed by, the whale flaked out showing us his very dark ventral tail pattern. We decided to move on and were very lucky to pick up an adult female humpback named Nile. 

Right dorsal fin of Nile. 

Ventral tail pattern of Nile. 

Nile was traveling slowly at the surface of the port side of our vessel. This whale was born in 1987 to a mother named Mars. Nile has had 4 calves, but does not have a calf this season. Nile was named for the black vertical line on her left fluke that forks at the bottom. This mark looks like the Nile river. 

Flipper slapping by Dome's calf. 

Tail breaching by Dome's calf. 

Spinning head breach by Dome's calf. 

Chin breaching by Dome's calf. 

We saw a splash behind us and realized that Dome's calf was getting very active. This calf was doing almost every active behavior ever exhibited by humpback whales. First the calf started to chin breach, then spinning head breach and then flipper slap. What a silly, but beautiful baby whale!

Spinning head breach by Dome's calf. 

As we headed back over the bank on our way back to Plymouth Harbor, we picked up a single humpback who we identified as Mogul. Fabulous day offshore with at least 15 to 20 humpback whales on the mid bank. We were able to identify: Dome and calf, Pumba, Kahoutek, Columbia, Nile andMogul. For seabird sightings offshore, we had sooty shearwaters, greater shearwaters, manx shearwaters, Wilson's storm petrels and common terns.