previous whale sightings reports:
May 15, 2008 (photographs as promised...)
JUNE 7, 2008
total sightings from today's whale watch:
15-20 HUMPBACK WHALES, 2 FIN WHALES, and 2 MINKE WHALES
This past week has brought us wind, rain, sunshine, fog, hot days, cold
days, rough seas and
calm seas. But through it all we have still been seeing a good
number of whales on nearly each whale watch trip to Stellwagen Bank.
On some trips we find that the whales are all concentrated in one small
area.
This,
we believe, happens when the "feed" (the small schooling fish that the
whales feed on) is particularly dense (concentrated) in one spot. On
trips such as these we have seen as many as 30 whales in a single day.
At other times (perhaps when the feed is more scattered) we have found
that the whales are spread out all over the Bank in small groups. On
these days we may sight 8-10 whales in a day. But more whales
doesn't always mean a better whale watch. Indeed my favorite trip of
this past week was on a dark, rainy day when we saw "only" 5 whales.
But on this particular trip we had a HUMPBACK WHALE calf ("Nuages" calf)
"play with the boat". This is when the whale comes over to the boat
to investigate the boat and the people onboard. I got a great photo
of the calf lifting its head out of the water to look at us while the rain
splashed down....
(click the above photo to enlarge image and see more detail. BTW, this photo makes a really cool desktop background!)
ALL PHOTOS TAKEN BETWEEN JUNE 2 and JUNE 7, 2008
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