A Minke Weekend

Minke whales were plentiful on and near Jeffreys Ledge this weekend. Today we were fortunate to have 5-6 different minke whales circling the Atlantic Queen while they hunted for prey apparently just below the surface. We got great looks at these minkes!

We grabbed a water sample with our plankton net at one point, and found it chock-full of plankton, especially copepods, which in addition to being a fun word to say, is an important organism in the Gulf of Maine. The copepod forms an important link in the food web as they feed on small phytoplankton and are in turn fed upon by fish like Atlantic herring, which are eaten by whales. We saw the food web in action today, with the high abundance of plankton apparently drawing lots of fish, which attracted the minkes!

I enjoyed meeting and talking with everyone on board today, including many repeat visitors, many visitors from Pennsylvania and some "regulars" who were honoring us by celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary aboard the boat. Thanks for coming and we hope to see you again soon!

This just in...

Research Associate, Jonathan Gwalthney was fishing on the northern part of Jeffreys Ledge yesterday and came across our friends Fjord, the fin whale, and Flask, the humpback whale!! We've seen Fjord a couple of times so far but this was the first sighting of Flask for the season! Both Flask and Fjord are Blue Ocean Society adopt-a-whales, and are currently available for adoption! Visit our website http://www.blueoceansociety.org/Store/store.html for more information.

In addition to these well known friends, Jonathan also caught a quick glimpse of fin whale #0354, and a humpback that we are still working on identifying. Thanks for the sightings JG!

If you wait long enough, the whale will find you!

Friday's trip on board the Prince of Whales in Newburyport showed us a wonderful variety of what Jeffreys Ledge has to offer. We began our trip by observing a cooperative minke whale about half way between shore and the ledge. We all got some great looks at the minke, who was scooting around quite a bit, and even swam under our boat and blew bubbles on the port side!

As we approached the edge of the ledge, we got a call from our friends on another whale watch boat informing us of a large fin whale in the area. We slowed down and got some great looks at this whale that had a large notch in its dorsal fin. This whale is one that our researchers have been tracking since 1996, and has a history of sightings in other locations dating back to 1984! Although this distinctive whale does not yet have a name, it is know by the ID number "9618". We see this whale fairly frequently and would love to assign it an official name. If any of the students from the Bethlehem or Sunapee schools would like to suggest some names, we will certainly take those into consideration! Keep in mind, whale are usually named for distinctive marks, like that big notch in the dorsal fin!

As we were watching 9618 for a while, Captain Billy spotted another blow not too far away. We moved about a half mile and looked and looked. This mystery whale was not showing itself. After a few minutes of staring at quiet water, we saw a blow! It was 9618 again, seemingly following us. But then two more blows appeared. These blows were smaller in size, and we found that the whales that were under the blows were humpback whales! One of the whales went down for a dive and was gone. The other was closer to us, and as it dove, we were all excited to see its huge tail come out of the water! The distinctive markings on the underside of this little humpback whale's tail matched a whale in our catalog. It was Chickadee- the 2006 calf of Rapier! Chickadee was seen on Jeffreys Ledge last year but was not given a name until this past April! We wished we could have stayed longer to see who the other whale near Chickadee was, but the dock was calling and we had to head for home.

Thanks to the enthusiastic students, parents, teachers and family groups who accompanied us on this trip! We hope you join us again soon for another adventure to see who else is visiting the ledge this summer!

The Strafford School field trip on the Atlantic Queen

I wanted to thank all the students and adults who joined us on our trip to Jeffreys Ledge this morning. On the trip we were lucky enough to spot a beautiful Minke Whale and even came across a regular visitor to the Gulf of Maine, Fjord. During the trip all the students had very good questions and behaved very well. While passing around the replica teeth of an Orca and a Sperm Whale along with a piece of Fin Whale baleen a question I was asked about the name origins of the Sperm whale. In the excitement of the questions and whale spotting I forgot to answer. Sperm Whale, Physeter macrocephalus was given that name because of an oily fluid in the head of the whale which whalers at one point believed was a large quantity of reproductive fluid, and thus the name. This fluid, when cold does harden is not what whalers once thought, and one theory is that it is used to alter its bouyancy while it dives to incredible depths in search of food.
Again thank you for a great trip and I hope to see all of you on future whale watching trips. Please don't forget to visit the great touch tank we have at the dock next to the Portsmouth Steamship Company.
Thank you
-Jason

Welcome Summer '09 Interns!

Our summer 09 interns started yesterday, and Research/Intern Coordinator Dianna has been giving them a comprehensive run-through in everything we do and all their responsibilities for the summer. As I write this, everyone is having a good time giggling over whale watch videos in our conference room and learning about sequencing whale behavior!

We had a beautiful day yesterday and paused before "baleen training" to take a group photo. Here are some of the friendly faces you'll see if you join us for a program this summer:


In Photo: Back row: Rachel Neild, Educator; Katherine Lanzer, Touch Tank Coordinator; Kirstin, Intern; Hanna, Intern; Lauren, Intern; Alyssa, Intern; Philip, Intern; Emily, Intern; Jason, Intern; Patty Adell, Programs Coordinator; Dianna Schulte, Research and Intern Coordinator.

Front row: Keeley, Intern; Piper Bartlett, Coastal Cleanup Intern.

Today on the Prince of Whales, we braved choppy seas and found at least 5-6 fin whales and a couple of minke whales in the 500-foot deep water just to the west of Jeffreys Ledge. To our surprise, a calf surfaced with no adult whale in sight, at least for a few minutes. Then the calf rejoined its mother and began nursing- alternating which side of the mother it surfaced on while getting a mouthful of milk below her. Fin whale calves can drink up to 50 gallons of milk per day! This was the first mother/calf pair of fin whales seen this season! Check out that bright white lower jaw!

We also recognized an old friend, fin whale #9618- a whale we've been following since 1996, and who has been seen by other researchers since 1984!

Join us next weekend for another day on the water and help us find more whales!

"Fjord" the Fin Whale and Lots of Minkes

We had a beautiful day on the water aboard the Atlantic Queen yesterday. We had several minkes near Old Scantum, a ledge about 15 miles off shore, and then came upon one of our favorite fin whales, "Fjord," who is also one of our adopt-a-whales! I laughed when I saw this whale, because that morning, I had seen our research coordinator Dianna at our monthly beach cleanup, and she jokingly said, "go see Fjord today," and that's exactly what happened!


Fjord is one of our most consistently sighted fin whales. We've seen him (I believe it's a "he," since it's never been seen with a calf) in 12 of the last 13 seasons, so his sighting history with us dates all the way back to 1996. He's consistently sighted early in the season. If you ask researchers at Allied Whale, the curators of the North Atlantic Finback Catalog, they'll tell you he was seen as early as 1981. This makes this whale a minimum of about 34 years old, and he may be much older than that, as fin whales are thought to live at least 80 years.