August 12 Granite State

Not only did we see a variety of marine life out on Jeffreys Ledge today, we saw LOTS of varieties of marine life during both our trips today! Both trips included at least 18 different whales spotted, many of which were moving through the water in pairs and even trios!

This morning started off with a couple different Fin whales. We were able to identify one of these animals as #9724.

Many a scar found before and after the dorsal fin of #9724

This whale was first sighted in 1997 and has been seen on Jeffreys Ledge over the years. Unfortunately this whale has some new scars around the back half of its body, impacts due to human activity out in the ocean. Whales and people utilize this watery habitat for a variety of reasons. More often than not, whales end up having encounters with boats (of all shapes and sizes!) as well as entanglements in fishing gear, both of which can negatively impact their lives. Thankfully many whales are able to heal and continue swimming the open seas with only scars/markings along their bodies; a constant reminder to us of the threats these mammals face. Some whales are not as lucky as they have been known to perish as a direct result of such occurrences. We all do our due vigilance while out on the water, constantly looking for signs of whale activity, and respecting these animals in their watery niche of the world.

While we do not know exactly who this whale is just yet, the very distinctive scar on this whale's back allows us to differentiate this whale apart from other Fin whales we may see during our travels.

The day continued with another sleek moving whale, smaller than a Fin whale, but the fastest whale in the ocean, a Sei whale. But it wasn't just one Sei whale we found, we came across 3!

The dorsal fin of a Sei whale. Note the much larger, or prominent, dorsal fin of this species

All three of these animals were surfacing together maneuvering through the water with such synchrony. Amazing.

Two of the 3 Sei whales at the surface

The trip wasn't over yet though. We also saw 2 different Blue sharks, 6 other Sei whales scattered about, and out in the distance a North Atlantic Right whale! Not only were we seeing so many animals crossing paths, beyond all the Sei whale activity was one (out of less than 500!) critically endangered North Atlantic Right whales! What a special treat to end an already awesome trip.

With such a great trip behind us it wasn't rocket science that we were going to head back out to where we had seen the Fin whales and some of our Sei whales from our morning adventures. Little did we know what the afternoon out around Jeffreys Ledge was going to have in store for us. The first whales we sighted were a trio of Sei whales. The interesting fact about this sighting is that one of the trio from this group was one of the same Sei whales we had seen in the morning!

Even though this Sei whale has a "smaller" dorsal fin than most other Sei whales we sighted, the unique markings along this animal's back verifies it was one of the same whales photographed this morning

This particular whale was still actively circling around the area with "friends" even though they may have been different accompaniments than the morning trio. These animals always find a way to surprise and intrigue us each and every day, no matter what the species! With some great looks at these animals we pressed on as we could see more spouts out in the distance. What did we come upon next? Nothing we had seen in the morning and yet we weren't far from some of the same areas we had spent time in during the morning hours. For one we had a Fin whale identified as #0627 who had not been seen during the morning but yet there it was this afternoon.

Fin whale #0627

We also came across a Humpback whale. Specifically, Striation the Humpback whale. The last time this whale was seen on Jeffreys Ledge was 8 days ago, on August 4th.

Above: The underside of Striation's tail
Below: Striation surfacing for a breath while filtering out gallons of salt water from its mouth!

Who knows where this whale has been spending its time over the past week but thanks for making your presence known today!

The open ocean is home to activity from mammals of all kinds! Humans and whales alike utilize the waters for many different reasons, just make sure you respect and keep a lookout for both!

We decided to check out some of the other spouts not too far in the distance since we had some more time for exploring so off we went to see what else was lurking nearby. My oh my did we find quite the activity all of a sudden. 3 Fin whales surfaced right alongside each other, 2 Sei whales started to zig and zag back and forth from one side of the boat to another, and in the middle of all that was another Humpback whale! But that wasn't it. There was a pod of about 25 Atlantic white-sided dolphins making their way through the area as well!

Atlantic white-sided dolphins cruising through the area

Four species all in sight of each other at the exact same time!!! No matter where you looked there was some sort of whale activity nearby! What a remarkable sight.

One of the Sei whales in the area. Even within species you can tell these whales apart from each other. This animal has many small markings all long its back which helps us distinguish this Sei whale apart from others in the area.

We were able to get identification photographs on our Fin whales and Humpback whale in the area. Our trio of Fin whales included #9618 and two others that do not yet have a number but have been seen multiple times this season on Jeffreys Ledge.

Fin whale #9618 which has a noticeable section of its dorsal fin missing

Our Humpback whale in the are ended up being Zio (photo below). This whale too has already been sighted multiple times on Jeffreys Ledge this season and has resurfaced once again in our neck of the sea.

After all that we STILL had a little bit more time to explore. We were about to make our way to another spout we saw a few miles away when a Right whale surfaced in the distance! Another baleen whale to add to the list of an already awesome number of sightings seen this afternoon. Looks like just about every species was out taking full advantage of all that Jeffreys Ledge had to offer today. What a day.

Congratulations to all our first-time whale spotters today. You folks picked quite the day to get your first experience of some of nature's wild giants. Thanks to Dick and Sharon for adopting Flask and a special thanks to our intern today, Lacey, who did an amazing job collecting data and deciphering between all the whales we spotted today! Beautiful weather, awesome whales, and great passengers!


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