May 29, 2012 Whale Watch

2 pm Whale Watch - Krill

We had an amazing day offshore with at least 25 surface feeding humpback whales. The fog kept coming in and and out reducing our visibility to less than 100 feet at times over the course of our trip. But that didn't stop the whales from feeding right next to our boat.

We were able to identify quite a few of our humpbacks and I want to thank our captain, Capt. Jonny, and our interns Kate and Kelsey from the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance for helping out.  Our captains and interns are very good at identifying individual humpbacks using the markings on their body including the fluke pattern. Great team effort. 

Here are the humpbacks that we were able to identify so far: Ventisca, Etch-a-Sketch, Blackhole, Eruption, Ganesh, Anchor and calf, Rapier and calf, Circus and Division. 

The star of the show was Rapier's calf who was doing every type of active behavior in the book!  This little calf has a lot of barnacles on the underside of its fluke. Mom even has a large number of barnacles on her fluke and this is new for her.  Not sure what this signifies, but it doesn't bother the whales in any way. 

Rapier's calf was tailing breaching, lobtailing, inverted lobtailing and rolling over. You had a feeling that this little animal was just having a good time while mom was feeding at the surface. What a sweetie!  We also had sightings of Northern gannets (juveniles) and sooty shearwaters. Many more shearwaters are showing up in our area now, especially with surface feeding whales. 

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

May 27, 2012 Whale Watch

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Krill

May 26, 2012 Whale Watches - Krill

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Krill

9 am Whale Watch

We had an amazing whale watch as we observed over 30 humpback whales feeding on the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank. For much of our trip, we drifted in the area and watched whales lunging right next to our boat. Many were kick feeding, a behavior where they smash the surface of the water with their tails (flukes) to create a disturbance and stun the bait, before blowing columns of bubbles that help confine the bait.

Seeing whales surfacing with their mouth's wide open as they engulf hundreds of gallons of water and fish was incredible. And to see so many of these animals feeding in the same area was quite a treat.

The star of our show was a humpback whale named Bounce who was quite active for about 5 minutes. Bounce was tail breaching, lobtailing and flipper slapping which created quite a disturbance in the area. We don't often see these active behaviors offshore, but when we do, WOW!

We were able to identify many of the humpbacks seen offshore including: Cajun, Bounce, Music, Alphorn, Etch-a-Sketch, Wizard, Ventisca, Canopy, Blackhole, Eruption, Perseid, Tongs Centipede Circus and Milkweed.

Here is a short video clip for this trip.

2 pm Whale Watch

We had another fabulous trip offshore with lots of feeding on the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank. Feeding on the bank were at least 20 humpback whales and a handful of minke whales.  Some humpbacks were feeding on their own, like Division. Others, like Fracture and Pogo, were feeding in small groups of up to 6 animals.

Here is a short video clip taken from this trip.

Also in this area were two mother and calf pairs that included: Anchor and her calf of this year and Rapier and her calf of this year. The bait seemed to be a bit lower down in the water column, but we assumed the they were still feeding on sand lance.

Individual humpbacks that we were able to identify include: Entropy, Division, Midnight, Blackhole, Eruption, Pogo, Fracture, Ampersand, Putter, Anchor and calf, Rapier and calf, Shards and Cajun.

May 25, 2012 Whale Watch - Tammy

2 pm Whale Watch - Tammy

5/25/12 1400WW blog                  

Today was a fantastic afternoon of whale watching. We had sightings of minke whales, a finback whale and 15-20 humpback whales. Many of the humpback whales were feeding alone or in pairs. We spent quite awhile with two humpback whales named Fracture and Pogo who were producing bubble nets and lunge feeding at the surface.  Other humpback whales were kick-feeding, or using their tails to stun their prey. 

We were also so lucky to have sightings of two mother-calf pairs: Anchor and calf and another unidentified mother and her calf.  This second calf was being quite playful at the surface while mom was down on longer dives.  It was so exciting to see this calf rolling, diving and breaching! The calf did four spinning head breaches, a behavior that we only see on about 10% of our whale watching trips. It was an amazing end to our trip. 

As we headed home, we examined our photos to see if we could determine the identify of the second mother. We finally were able to identify this animal as a mom named Dusky.  So great to meet Dusky's new calf who was obviously very playful and full of energy. 

Humpbacks identified include: Fracture, Pogo, Entropy, Anchor and calf, Centipede, Cajun and Dusky and calf. For seabirds, we had Northern gannets and sooty shearwaters. We also saw laughing gulls and common terns.