Blue Ocean Society's Whale Sightings

Greetings! Thanks for visiting our blog. Our staff and interns will be posting their experiences here working on whale watch boats in NH and MA.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

July 16 Prince of Whales

Today was a day of oddities on the ledge!
We began our morning trip with a very nice, and familiar, fin whale, #9709. She is a female, first documented by BOS researches in 1997- 4 years before BOS was founded! (It makes sense if you don't think about it)

Fin whale #9709

After that, we found a pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins. These guys were feeding when we arrived and quickly decided that the boat was more fun- leaping in the waves behind our boat. I managed to get a photo one of these dolphins completely out of the water- again- they are called "white-sided" dolphins...Can you tell what is wrong about the photo below?
Atlantic white sided dolphin??
The pod was certainly the AWSD species, but this individual looks different-it has no white side, nor tan stripe along the tail stock- maybe a genetic mutation or a hybrid with another species?? Odd...

Next with the help of our friends on the Granite State, we watched a trio of humpback whales- a mother/calf pair with an escort! The mom was Mudskipper, a first-time mother, and the escort was 5-year-old Chickadee.
Chickadee and Mudskipper

Chickadee, with Mudskipper behind her

We saw another fin whale in the area with the humpback whales, and then headed for home, stopping only briefly to see the dolphins again.

On the afternoon trip, we started with a fin whale again. This whale has not been identified yet.


Fin whale

As we were waiting for a humpback to surface, a friendly minke popped up. Here is another odd whale- this 25-foot whale has an odd-looking upper jaw. Usually the nose area is very pointed. This one seems a bit bulbous.
Minke whale
As it surfaced close by, we could follow it along by watching the white patches on the flippers glow under water.

The humpback we were watching has yet to be identified. It was a bit wiggly and hard to keep track of but we managed to get a couple looks:

The unusual part of this whale was its flukes- they seem up-turned and not flat like most humpback whales we see.

Humpback whale, Hornbill, the male first seen in 1977, was also in the area and was behaving surprisingly well (he has a reputation for being "uncooperative").

All in all a very nice day with perfect weather and great passengers! Congrats to our whale adoption raffle winners on both trips today!




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