previous whale sightings reports:
May 15, 2008 (photographs as promised...)
JUNE 12, 2008
total sightings from today's whale watch:
15+ HUMPBACK WHALES, 8 FIN WHALES, and 2 MINKE WHALES
A Curious Humpback Whale takes a close look at one of our passengers!
Once
again, I know that I just did a “current whale sightings update” just a
few days ago but I had to do another one today because of the great whale
watch we just had!
On
today’s whale watching trips we saw 15 HUMPBACK WHALES (more were in the
area too), 8 FIN WHALES and 2 MINKE WHALES. We got great looks at all
three species. The Humpback whales were the stars of the show, however,
as they put a spectacular display of breaching, feeding, tail breaching,
flipper slapping and even “close to boat” behavior. (It was a delight to
share these wonderful sightings with so many school children who came out
today. Perfect weather and lots of active whales! We are so glad you
came out today!)
Humpback Whale calf breaching
We started out trip on the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank where we sighted a group of 4 adult FIN WHALES traveling together. We were able to get a number of good looks at these whales as they were diving for very short periods (only about 3 minutes) and surfacing very close to the boat.
What was extra special about seeing 4 of these large whales (the second largest animal on Earth!) together was that we got to compare the size and shape of each whale’s dorsal fin. Notice in the 4 pictures included that each fin is slightly different. This is what allows researchers to identify individual Fin whales in an effort to learn more about this species. By following individual whales and observing how they use the marine environment of Stellwagen Bank, what species of fish they feed on, how they interact with other whales, how often they reproduce, and so on we can then extrapolate what we learn about the life of an individual whale to the population as a whole.
This method of research is relatively easy to do with the Humpback Whales in the area which are much easier to identify as individuals because of their unique marking on the underside of their tail flukes (see pictures of "Wizard" and "sloop" below). Fin whales, however, are not as easy to observe closely as the Humpbacks are and the differences between individuals are much more subtle and therefore much less is know about these whales. For example we don’t even know where Fin whales migrate to during the winter! We know that they migrate because they leave our area in the fall and return again in the spring (often times with new calves), but where they go for the winter is a mystery. That’s pretty amazing when you consider that they are the second largest animal in the world and they still can disappear for half the year! Hopefully by being able to observe this seemingly stable group of whales we will begin to learn more about these endangered giants that frequent our area.
Wizard Sloop
As much fun as it was to watch the Fin whales, we did eventually work our way south along the bank to spend the rest of our whale watch with the many HUMPBACK WHALES that were around. We first spotted “Tornado” and calf and it was Tornado’s calf that did a series of full spinning head breaches right alongside our boat! Almost out of sheer luck I was able to get this sequence of photographs of the little calf breaching.
Later we moved on to see some of the other Humpbacks that were feeding on Stellwagen Bank today. Throughout the remainder of the day we saw 3 more mother and calf pairs (“Cajun” and calf, "Wizard" and calf, and “Sloop” and calf) as well as other well-known Humpback Whales such as “Trident”, “Geometry”, “Anchor”, “Valley”, and “Cygnus”.
It was a great day on the water and one of the better whale watching days of the year. More new sighting updates to come soon I’m sure!!!
ALL PHOTOS TAKEN ON JUNE 12, 2008 FROM THE 7 SEAS WHALE WATCHING BOAT PRIVATEER IV
Some of the above photos were taken by our good friend Oktay Kaya. To see more of Oktay's beautiful whale photographs and other wildlife pictures he has taken please visit his site at http://www.whalesandwhales.com