August 21 - Prince of Whales- Newburyport

Our morning trip was a combo birding/whale watching trip. I'm sure the birders were happy to see the shearwaters, petrels, gannets, terns, phalaropes and even a couple of puffins (!!) but the whale watchers were left a bit disappointed. We did find a nice group of Atlantic white sided dolphins, some blue sharks, and our very first ocean sunfish of the season!!!!

Ocean sunfish (Mola mola)

For our afternoon trip, we decided to take a chance and head out to an area far from where we usually go but had reports from the past week of some whale activity. The Prince of Whales felt like the Energizer Bunny- she kept going and going and going... My parents were on this trip to celebrate their 43rd anniversary, and my Mom started to think that my Dad had chartered the boat to take them to Spain for the occasion.

But, before we landed in Spain, we spotted a blow. Then another. Soon, we found ourselves surrounded by 3-4 humpback whales! We haven't seen humpbacks in any concentration in about a month. Sure, we've had the solo stragglers here and there about 2 weeks ago, but this was a real treat for us to find several of these whales!

Blowholes of a humpback whale

Anvil's 2009 calf- to be named next spring

Kickstart

Spectogram- note the "rake marks" on the dorsal fin- evidence that this whale has seen Orcas in its short lifetime!

As we kept looking to the East, we saw more spouts and ventured out to investigate. Soon we found ourselves looking at the V-shaped blows that are characteristic of right whales! North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered and to see just one is a special and rare treat. We saw several in the area but soon decided to make our way back towards the humpbacks, and then towards home as we had a long ride to go.

As we always say, every trip is different and that was certainly the case today! Thank you to everyone who joined us, and special thanks to our intern, Willy, for making sure everyone got to learn about baleen!



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