July 6, 2012 Whale Watches

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Krill 

9 am trip:

Here is a short video taken during our morning trip. So nice to see Atlantic white-sided dolphins traveling with finback whales.

Shuffleboard's ventral tail pattern.

As you can see from our video, we had great looks at humpback whales, finback whales, minke whales and gray seals.  Our first sighting was a single humpback that took us a while to identify. Seanna, our onboard photographer and I worked very hard to figure out that this whale was Shuffleboard.

Prop scars on upper back of Fulcrum.

This whale was making bubble nets and lunging beneath the surface. And Shuffleboard would kick two times in order to create a bubble net to asset with feeding. 

Looking straight down Fulcrum's back. 

After we watched Shuffleboard for a while, we decided to move on and found another single humpback whale that we identified as Fulcrum. Fulcrum's dorsal fin and upper back show signs of a previous collision with a boat.  Luckily Fulcrum survived and returns each year to give birth to young. Fulcrum is an adult female who has brought back many calves into our population. 

Finback whale.

Finback whale with Atlantic white-sided dolphins.

We had small pods of Atlantic white-sided dolphins in the area and one group was traveling with two finback whales. The dolphins seemed to be leading the way as the whales consistently surfaced behind them. Thanks to our crew member Ronnie, for taking these great photos. That allowed me to collect the video that I posted above. 

Gray seal. 

We also had a quick look at a curious, young gray seal who was moving along the starboard side of the boat. What a silly seal!

2 pm trip:

Here is video from our afternoon whale watching trip. We had a humpback mother and calf that we identified as Boomerang and calf. Check out the video where both mom and calf fluke out together. Gorgeous!

We also had an interesting looking jellyfish next to the boat. Thanks to our good friend Eric, for identifying this jellyfish as a Lion's mane jellyfish. We often see jellyfish, but this one was spectacular. Also in this same area, we had an Elmo balloon and a red plastic boat. Marine debris is deadly to many marine wildlife offshore. These sightings were a reminder that balloons, plastic bags and other plastic items look similar to what sea turtles, ocean sunfish and other marine wildlife feed on - jellyfish. 

Lion's Mane jellyfish.

We had great views of Boomerang and her beautiful calf of this year. The calf surfaced right off our bow and rolled as it looked at the passengers on the bowsprit. As we were preparing to leave mom and calf, both animals flaked out together.

Boomerang and calf fluking out. 

We had many great views of Boomerang and calf as well as other marine wildlife. Enjoy the photos!

Gray Seal. 

Sooty Shearwater.

FinbackWhale.

July 5, 2012 Whale Watches

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Krill 

9 am trip: written by NECWA intern Carly Hepburn

We had a beautiful sunny morning whale watching on board the Tails of the Sea.  We headed out to Stellwagon Bank and quickly spotted our first sighting, a minke whale.  After a few minutes with the minke whale we continued our journey to mid bank of Stellwagen Bank. 

Early on we saw a finback whale and 3-4 humpback whales.  We stayed with one of the humpback whales who appeared to be feeding deep. We were able to identify this whales as an adult female named Columbia. Columbia was first seen in our waters in 1980 and has had 9 calves over that time period. She is a grandmother and even a great grandmother.

Our next sighting was with a playful 2012 calf who is the daughter of Scylla.  Scylla's calf displayed numerous behaviors that were amazing to witness.  She did over 14 spinning head breaches, 3 chin breaches, and a handful of tail breaches.  

We even saw this calf roll over to lobtail quite a few times.  The behavior lobtailing is when a whale lifts their tail out of the water and slaps the surface.

Humpback whale, Columbia.

When a whale breaches they hurl their entire body out of the water either head first or tail first.  This takes an enormous amount of energy considering the size and weight of the animal. After we left Scylla's calf we saw a few more humpback whales including an adult female named Columbia. We ended our whale watch with a humpback whale named Orbit who is also a mature female, but does not have a calf this season.

2 pm trip: 

Our first sighting for the afternoon trip was a single humpback whale named Dyad. Dyad was first seen in 1987 and has had 6 calves since that time. We will never know how old Dyad is for she was seen as a juvenile or young animal. This season, Dyad does not have a calf by her side. Long-term sightings of Dyad and other humpback mom's help us understand that mother's typically have a calf every two or three years. 

Our nest sighting was a mom and calf pair of humpback whales. As we slowly approached the animals, the mom decided to fly out of the water doing a behavior called a chin breach. I have worked offshore for over 30 years and I have never seen a whale come out of the water like this animal did when performing this behavior. Just as mom was finishing her chin breach, the calf decided to join in the fun and do a spinning head breach (sequence of images above).

We continued to watch this very active mom and her calf. We were finally able to get a look at the underside of the tail and found out that this mom was Scylla. Scylla decide to continue breaching providing us one of the most spectular active displays I have seen in a long time. 

 At one point, Scylla breached as she headed right for our boat. This gave us an amazing chance to get a photograph of a spinning head breach as the whale was spinning toward the boat. Wow!

All in all a fabulous day with 4 humpback whales and a variety of seabirds including Wilson's storm petrel, Cory's shearwater, greater shearwater, sooty shearwater. 

11 am Whale Watch - Diane