July 15 on the Granite State

Today was an action-packed day in more ways than one! Not only were the whales fantastic, but we did something aboard the Granite State that none of us have ever done before. We literally went to the complete opposite ends of Jeffreys Ledge during our whale watches today! To make this statement even more accurate, in the morning we actually went BEYOND Jeffreys Ledge. We headed 30 miles South of Rye Harbor this morning and 30 North of Rye Harbor this afternoon! How absolutely crazy is that???? The best part of the whole adventure was that no matter what extreme end we were at today we found whales, and lots of them!!

On our way to the Southern portion of Jeffreys Ledge this morning we came across a pod of 40-50 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. The calm seas provided ideal conditions to spend some time with these whales before pressing on towards an area where we had had successful sightings of whales the past week. While we ended up having to travel a few extra miles beyond where our last whales had been on Tuesday (weather conditions this past Wednesday kept us all on land for the day), we were excited the whales were still around. We found a Fin whale and at least 7 Humpback whales in the area. We didn't even know where to start! Whales were spouting in so many directions all around the boat, it was fantastic. It did not take long to know why there were so many whales in this one particular area. Check out our Fishfinder!!!

This piece of equipment is illustrating that between 40ft-160ft below the surface of the water that whole zone of ocean is chalk-full of food. The depth of the ocean floor in this area was only 214ft deep and the majority of the water column was being taken up by massive amounts of food!!!

We ended up spending some time with a couple of the Humpback whales, Etch-A-Sketch and Zipper. These two whales are both adults. Etch-A-Sketch was born in 1998 and Zipper was first sighted in 1985. Etch-A-Sketch was definitely feeding as this whale would surface with salt water pouring out of its mouth, indicating a huge mouthful of food and water, and making full use of its baleen plates to filter all the water out and keep the food inside! This whale even "pooped" once, producing a bright red cloud in the water.

Etch-A-Sketch going down on a deeper dive while leaving a red "cloud" on the surface of the water

A red cloud means this whale was feeding on krill (a brown cloud means that the whale is eating fish!) Amazing that we can determine just what these animals are feeding on based on the coloration of its defecation! A bit weird and yet pretty cool all at the same time.

With the weather still just as beautiful this afternoon and reports coming from vessels on the Northern end of Jeffreys Ledge, we decided to test our luck and see if we could venture off in a completely different direction in the afternoon and still come across whales. We literally travelled towards the Northern most section of Jeffreys Ledge. While the travel time remained the exact same as our morning commute to our whales sightings, we were all anxious as to see what we hoped to come across on the Northern portion of the Ledge. Our determination paid off!

We came into an area where we saw an exhalation from a whale. Then moments later, another exhalation. Then another. It appeared as though we had at least 4 whales relatively close by to each other. A few moments later we realized they were all Humpback whales. We began with a pair that seemed to be circling the area and so eased our way over to their location. This pair turned out to be Nuages (a whale we saw 6 days ago at the very Southern end of Jeffreys Ledge!!) and Siphon's 2009 calf.

Nuages

Both of these animals have seen at one point or another during this season aboard the Granite State, but in very different locations than where these whales, and our boat, were currently at! Amazing to think just how easily these massive whales can swim through the ocean maneuvering any which direction they so desire, at any moment in time, and get the chance to encounter the same individuals days later still taking advantage of the productive feeding grounds.

While spending time with these animals we suddenly realized all the other spouts from whales we had been seeing in the distance were quickly moving into our area. Suddenly we had 4, if not 5, Humpback whales in a complete feeding frenzy! Out of nowhere these animals all converged on this one specific location and started creating bubble clouds, a feeding mechanism only specific to Humpback whales, surfacing for a breath and then diving right back under the water for a few more seconds.

Two Humpback whales surfacing with their mouths wide open (you are looking at the upper jaw of these two whales, with their baleen plates hanging down!) while a 3rd takes a breath alongside

What had suddenly caused all this commotion? Our answer was right under us. We just had to look down. Right on the surface of the water was whale food; KRILL! These crustacean-like small critters were all around the boat. The Humpback whales we were watching were eating all the krill, forcing these animals to come to the surface in hopes of avoiding a large mouth of any of our Humpback whales. We watched as the whales would literally surface almost on top of each other, doing whatever they could to capture as much food in their mouths as possible. What a sight!

Two Humpback whales right next to each other that literally "bumped"up against each other under the water, maybe attempting to veer one of themselves off-course, so that the winner could chomp down on a particular concentration of food!

As we were all enthralled with the activities happening just to the side of the boat, guess what suddenly surfaced out of nowhere.... a pair of Fin whales! It was a mother and her 2010 calf that came to the surface in the exact spot where 3 Humpback whales had just dove down!How all these large whales avoided each other under the water astonishes me and as quickly as the Fin whale pair surfaced, they just as soon disappeared! Whether this pair was just travelling through the area, or was attempting to grab a quick bite to eat, we do not know, but they were there in the midst of all this activity, and probably chowed down on some of the food the Humpback whales were corralling together.

Of course I cannot forget to mention just before the feeding frenzy began, one of our Humpback whales off in the distance jumped clear out of the water and then started to lobtail! This whale was raising its tail high above the water line and then smacking it on the surface of the water before repeating the activity again and again. You just did not know where to look. Activity of all sorts were occurring all around the boat!

All in all we were able to identify 6 of the Humpback whales we had in the area this afternoon. Along with Nuages and Siphon's 2009 calf (a whale that will be named this fall) we also saw Ivee, Barb, Kohoutek and Sickle. Barb has not been seen on Jeffreys Ledge in a handful of years whereas we saw Ivee a few times last year during the 2009 whale watch season. Kohoutek was last spotted on the Ledge in the fall of 2008 and we were excited to see Sickle back in the area. This whale was one of the first Humpback whales we saw during the beginning of this season, actually sighted during our first and second trips this year! This whale, wherever it had gone, is back and was participating in the feeding behaviors we saw today. What a spectacular day!

Our passengers were great as it was a bit of a ride to get to the whales today but our sighting were well worth it! Thanks to all who came out with us, both familiar faces and new visitors, and to our Blue Ocean Society intern Samantha today. She did a fantastic job recording important data on all the whales we saw and all the behaviors we were lucky enough to watch. Thanks for making sense of the "organized chaos" known as whales today Sam!

UPDATE: Our mother and calf Fin whale pair has been identified as Fin whale #0838 thanks to Dianna, our Fin whale Master-IDer, and Blue Ocean Society Research Coordinator!

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