Humpbacks return!

Today was a beautiful day for watching whales. We began our day with a pair of finback whales. They were staying under water for 8 minutes but otherwise sticking around the area. While watching these two, we spotted another blow to the north. This turned out to be a young humpback whale. We haven't seen humpbacks since late August so this was a nice surprise! Another finback popped up and the humpback lost us. Fortunately, a second humpback was sighted not too far away. This one was feeding and surfacing very close to our boat, giving everyone a great view of it's bumpy snout, clipped dorsal fin, white flippers and, eventually, its tail! Though we couldn't ID this whale during the trip, I just found this little bugger in our larger catalog- it is Filament's 2007 calf, which will be given a name next spring. Here are some images of this whale filtering water from its mouth, as well as its notched fin and distinctive fluke.