Tuesday's Trip on the Prince of Whales

As the clouds rolled in and a few sprinkles fell, the whales continued to eat. The thought of how much fish is around Jeffreys Ledge still baffles me. Finback whales can eat 2-3 tons of fish per day, and we had 6 of them in the area, mostly all feeding at the surface. We also saw the hungry humpback, Tigris, surface feeding too! Humpbacks eat 1-1.5 tons of fish per day! Minke whales were scooting about as well! Jeffreys Ledge is alive and well- so wonderful to see after several years with huge herring fishing boats in the area which took away massive amounts of the herring from the whales dinner table! Fortunately for the whales, these boats are now restricted in where they can fish during the summer whale feeding season!

During our trip, our friends on the Granite State swung by to visit with Tigris as well. Tigris was feeding, but not using the typical bubble clouds that we often see on the surface before the whale comes crashing through the surface waters. This made for tricky photography as we had no idea where he would come up next!

The finbacks were just as unpredictable but we were able to get a few great looks at the pair that was feeding offshore! What an awesome afternoon!

Got whales?

Jeffrey's Ledge seems to be providing all of our local whale watches with plenty of animals to view! Some highlights from the day include the Humpback whale Solas who delighted our morning passengers with some great feeding behaviors. This whale was corralling fish with lots of bubble clouds and my new favorite behavior kick feeding. The amount of water a whale can displace with one quick flick of it's tail is just incredible and such a sight to witness. We also found Minke whales and Fin whales scattered throughout the Ledge this morning.

Our afternoon trip again provided us with more feeding behaviors from both Fin whales and Humpback whales. One of the fin whale we spent some time kept lunging through the water scooping up food at least half a dozen times. Tigris, a Humpback whale, was also in the area and our passengers got a chance to spend time watching this particular cetacean bubble feed. You can see in the photo some very lucky schooling fish (most likely herring or mackerel) barely missing the whales open mouth as it came to the surface. Of course the birds weren't too far away and definitely used the opportunity to catch some of those fish the whale missed. The food web was in action all over the place today!

Plankton, fish, whales and birds. . . always a good sign life is out and about on the Ledge. Look forward to seeing you and finding some animals again tomorrow.

Monday's Trip on the Prince of Whales

You can tell how successful a trip is by the tan-o-meter. Today, after I got home, I looked in the mirror and realized the sunglasses tan line was much more distinctive than it was this morning! I certainly spent more time on top of the wheel house looking at and talking about whales than on a typical trip! We had a lot to see and discuss today. Fjord, the finback whale, six humpback whales and a quick look at a minke whale kept us very busy :)

Mudskipper in particular was extremely active. We spotted this humpback whale a few miles off our bow while we were watching Fjord. He wasn't hard to spot- he breached over and over again, and then began flipper slapping. After these dramatic displays, he began to bubble feed. All of these different behaviors kept our intern, Philip, very busy with the data collection!

We continued on and passed by two more humpback whales before coming upon three more humpbacks- Flask (our good ol' buddy!), Tripod and Chromosome. These three were all deep feeding on schools of fish about 100 feet below us, and several times surfaced very close to the boat- once very unexpectedly (apologies to anyone who overheard my surprised exclaimation)!

All in all, we had a beautiful day on the ocean and thanks to all the interested passengers who came as far as Texas and Germany to see whales! Also, thanks to the local folks from Groveland and Rhode Island for your excellent questions and sincere interest!

For more information about whales, our research and how you can help or even adopt a whale, please visit our website at http://www.blueoceansociety.org/ Thanks!

Amazing Sunday on the Prince of Whales

Today was all about quality! We had good looks at two whales on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. The first was a finback whale, #0369. We hadn't seen this whale yet this summer, but it is a regular visitor to Jeffreys Ledge. After a few typical surfacings, #0369 surfaced again, but this time it was like a submarine rising from the sea! It came up without spouting, and rolled on its side, showing us its flipper and tail as it lunged through the surface water in an attempt to catch some food! Awesome!

After we left the finback, we headed to some inshore ledges and came across the humback whale named Mudskipper. This whale has been infamous for not lifting its tail when it goes down for a dive, but that was the only part of this whale that we didn't see today! Mudskipper was bubble feeding- blowing big patches of bubbles to corral the fish, and then surfacing right in the bubbles with its mouth wide open! Mudskipper did this several times, and then went down for a dive. As we were anticipating another bubble cloud to rise, we had no idea what we were about to see next. Mudskipper launched its whole body out of the water in a full breach! Amazing!! This is one big humpback! Breaching is a behavior that humpbacks are known for, but also one that we rarely get to see up close! We still don't know why whales breach. It could be for fun or a form of communication, or even to help with digestion! We still have so much to learn about these incredible animals!

As Mudskipper moved away and our time was running short, we began our trip back into Newburyport with the giddy feeling of knowing we just experienced one of nature's most dramatic displays. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get back out there today!

More food anyone?

What a day aboard the Granite State. We started out a few miles past the Isles of Shoals with lots of bird activity and a single Fin whale in the middle of it all. When we got closer, we noticed that there were small sand sharks (dogfish) underneath the surface as well. The sharks seem to be competing with hundreds of Shearwaters for food. It was a fantastic start to our day. Once offshore near a sourthern area of Jeffrey's Ledge we found 2 Adult Humpback whales travelling together. It was Tripod and our old friend Chromosome. These 2 whales were relaxed along the surface, most likely needing a break from feeding all morning. On our way back in, we found more Fin whales lunge feeding at the surface. It still amazes me that these 60+ ton animals can turn on a dime with little to no effort. There was so much activity on our return trip back to Rye, that we were anxious to get back out there.

Our afternoon started out similar to the morning, excpet we found a single Humpback feeding in the area that the Fin whale had been in. This whale, named Mud-skippper, was first seen in 1999. Mud-skipper was quite hungry, continually making bubble clouds to help corral food. All the birds in the area were taking notice as well, including three different species of shearwaters. After enjoying some close encounters with this whale, we decided to head to Jeffrey's in search of whales we had seen earlier in the day. However, we were unable to find any of them. Just goes to show you how unpredictable nature can be. With that in mind, we decided to head a little inshore where we received reports of more whale activity. We found 2 Fin whales travelling together, not to far away from where Mud-skipper had been ealrier that afternoon. We then saw a Humpback whale surface in ther same area a few minutes later. I assumed it was mud-skipper, but to my surprise, it was not. It was my boy Flask. This is the second time I have seen him this season and he treated everyone to more bubble feeding. Working with wild animals certainly has its surprises, but that's why we love it!

Prince of Whales on Friday-Awesome!!

What a day! 17-19 whales today!! 7 humpbacks, 6 finbacks, and 4-6 minkes! Jeffreys Ledge is alive! Flask was our first humpback, then the pair- Chromosome and Tripod. From there, 4 finbacks popped up, including good ol' # 9724!! Minkes were poking out all over.

We left there and headed north, and came across the humpback and finback whale feeding frenzy!! Valley and her friend (just identified as Mudskipper) were bubble feeding together, and not far away, Quote and Sabot were doing the same thing! Huge clouds of green bubbles to confuse the fish, and then the whales were crashing right through the clouds with their mouths wide open!! Awesome! Hungry whales!! And 2 finbacks were cruising through the bait fish too! It's amazing to see these huge lunges at the surface by these whales attempting to catch some of the 2-3 tons of fish they need per day!

What an amazing day!

Happy Friday!

What a day today. For those of you who took the chance to go in search of whales on Jeffrey's Ledge today you all got a chance to witness some amazing cetacean behaviors. We found Minke whales popping up in every direction this morning. We found one Fin whale this morning and headed back to the same area this afternoon and found two Fin whales. One of these Fin whales is a whale is named Fjord who was first seen back on the Ledge this year on May 17. Fjord has a very distinct dorsal fin which helps in individually identifying fin whales we see in our summer season. Perhaps one of the coolest things we saw today was when Fjord went charging through the water, called lunging, in order to capture a large amount of food in it's mouth. When a fin whale lunges the amount of white water it creates is incredible. Fjord actually turned on it's side, plowed through the water with it's mouth wide open, and went after the enormous amount of schooling fish we saw in the water today (I attempted to get a picture of all the fish at the surface, didn't come out as well as I had hoped.) What was really impressive was that we saw half of this fin whale's tail sticking up out of the water while Fjord was doing this feeding behavior. Very rarely do people get a chance to see a fin whale's tail (they typically won't raise their tail when going on a deeper dive like some other whale species) so it was a special treat for our passengers on board today.

We also found it a bit interesting that this morning we found two Humpback whales, Valley and Quote, moving around together. This afternoon however, both whales were still in the area but were "hanging" out with different whales. Valley was seen making bubble clouds and open mouth feeding with another Humpback whale we have yet to match up with our catalog. Quote was not too far away also open mouth feeding with the Humpback Sabot. Nice to know these whales were spending lots of time in this one particular area, which made sense with so much food nearby. Being wild animals you never really know where whales might travel or do when you are watching them and so it was intriguing to see the same whales but doing different behaviors in a matter of hours.

We are all looking forward to heading back out to the Ledge tomorrow so bring your sunscreen and see you on the water!