Surprise, Surprise...

The last few days aboard the Granite State have left us on our toes. After rough sea conditions kept us on the dock on Friday, we went out Saturday, not really knowing what to expect. Sometimes when storm surges move through, the food supply gets shifted around and therefore the whales follow. We were surprised to find a very nice pod of toothed whales, Atlantic white sided dolphins. This group of dolphins really seemed interested in us, bow riding and looking up at our passengers. Here's a photo from one of passengers, Mandy Houston. She is an amazing photographer and a dear friend to the Granite State crew.

We were also fortunate enough to find an adult humpback whale as well as several minke whales throughout the trip. We have not indentified that Humpback just yet, but if we do soon, I will keep you all posted.

The afternoon started similarly with a pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins. We then spent time with an adult fin whale that swam right next to the boat. After spending some time with the Fin whale, we travelled closer to Jeffrey's Ledge, where we found 3 Humpback whales, Flask, Chromosome, and Tripod. They were all bubble feeding at the surface, but not all together. Flask was enjoying a mid-afternoon snack by himself, while the dynamic duo helped each other out. Here are some of my favorite photos of that afternoon.

Even though the number of whales were down, we were very happy to see such great feeding behavior from all the whale we saw that day.

Sunday was a little different out on the Ledge. Lots of fog rolled in and finding whales was proving to be a difficult task. Our hearty passengers didn't seem to mind, even when the wind decided to pick up and made our ride a bumpy and wet one. We were able to find a Fin whale, but it had lots of travelling on it's mind. It took a deeper dive for over 20 minutes and we were unable to relocate it. The sea conditions were rapidly declining, so we didn't venture out in the afternoon. We decided to try our luck again on Monday...

I'm sure glad we did. The day today started out quite foggy once again and that made me a little nervous as we left the harbor. We travelled for quite awhile, but then were pleasantly surprised by some dolphins charging at the surface. We were able to spend quite a bit of time with them, before they moved beyond the fog and we lost track of them. As we approached the Ledge, the fog started to clear and the sun was making an appearance. We found several different Minke whales as the fog lifted and then located a spout from a larger whale. As we approached the area one whale turned into 2, then 3 in an area. We followed two of the whales briefly. As one of them raised their tail abbove the surface, I put my camera up real quick and snapped a photo. To my surprise, it was a Humpback named Fan! We have been following Fan for about 20 years, but she has yet to be seen on the Ledge this year...that was until today! I was very excited to share the news with our passengers and as I did, a fishing vessel called us and told us of more whales in the area. We had very little time, but wanted to see who may be in the area. We found 5 more Humpback whales, including Solas, Valley, Filament, Milyway, and an unknown whale. It was the very first time I had seen Milkyway, and she hasn't been seen on Jeffrey's Ledge for several years. It was really nice to see some old friends again for the very first time this season.

With the fog lifted, we were anxious to get back out to the Ledge this afternoon. We started with an adult Fin whale that surfaced next to us and gave us great looks before travelling in search of more food. We also decided to continue travelling and as we approached the area we had been in the morning, it turned into a whale bonanza. There were 5 Fin whales and over 10 Humpbacks within a 5 mile radius and wherever you looked, spouts filled the air. Solas and Filament were busy kick-feeding, where the whales will raise their tail high above the surface and slap it down to help stun food. They would then create bubble clouds almost immediately and feed along the surface. We also found Valley travelling with an unidentified whale. Later in the afternoon, we decided to try and find whales in the area that we had yet to see and in doing so we located Tigris and another old friend we haven't seen for quite some time, a Humpback named Freckles. It was quite a surprising end to a day that started with thick fog. With more friendly faces returning to the Ledge, I'm looking forward to what this week may bring.
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Monday on the Prince of Whales

What an awesome day on Jeffreys Ledge today!! After yesterday's rough and foggy weather, and sparse sightings, our expectations for today were a bit low. But, we were soon overwhelmed by whales all around us! The sheer number of whales- finback, minke and humpback whales was like nothing we've seen on the Ledge in years! At one point, I was asked what makes these whales endangered, and how they could possibly be endangered with so many whales all around us!

Of all of the whales and dolphins (which are technically whales), my personal favorite sightings were the finback whales. We don't know much about these huge animals so any chance to see them is an opportunity to learn more about them. The associations of individuals is always interesting to see which whales are hanging out together, and then we wonder why. We found finback #0526 with 3 others who were all being flanked by dolphins!! The second largest of all the animals on Earth swimming with these "tiny" dolphins (7-9 feet long) is really fun to witness.

We were also graced by a new mother finback whale with her calf. I looked up the mom in our catalog and found that she was first documented on Jeffreys Ledge just last year! She is #0802- any suggestions for a name for this new mom??

As for our humpback whales- we started with who I believe was Tigris, the whale without a dorsal fin. We then came upon Filament who was kick-feeding, a relatively new humpback whale feeding style, as well as a pair of humpbacks, Solas and Milkyway. These 2 were cooperatively feeding- one would blow a ring of bubbles around the school of fish while the other would surface just before the bubbles came up to slap its tail to stun the fish. Then they both crashed through the surface with their mouths wide open!!

Thanks for coming with us and supporting our research and conservation efforts. Here are a few images from today's trip. Enjoy!

Finback whale mother #0802

Humpback whales Milkyway and Solas

Filament's fluke

Filament's entanglement scar- the deep notch before her fluke

Milkyway and Solas feeding

Open mouth of a humpback whale- the top jaw is very flat while the lower jaw is like a ladle, collecting all the fish!

Bubble cloud!

Finback whale spout

Finback whale #0526

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Sunday on the Prince of Whales

Hi!
Today was a much different day than yesterday. The wind and seas picked up overnight making for a bit of an uncomfortable ride out to Jeffreys Ledge. In the morning, during our whale and bird watch, we found some thick fog on the Ledge and had to work the inshore areas to find whales and birds. We found 2 finback whales in the morning- one close up, and the other was in the distance. The birds were awesome- our best sightings were behind a fishing boat! The diving gannets were awesome!

In the afternoon, we worked the western edge of the ledge and found a familiar friend, finback #9618! We haven't seen this guy in a while and he was cooperative as always! 9618 was taking long-ish dives but not traveling too much, and staying at the surface for 6-8 breaths, allowing us to approach and get great looks!

Here are some photos from the afternoon's trip:




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Saturday on the Prince of Whales

Humpback whale, "Raccoon"

What a beautiful day on the ocean today! Even though the whales were farther out than they have been, we still got fantastic looks at several of them today, along with some quick looks at Atlantic white sided dolphins!Fin whale

Our morning trip lead us to a traveling fin whale, as well as a slow moving humpback. We continued on to find three more humpbacks and our first pod of dolphins for the day! The humpbacks were Tigris, Raccoon, and Touche, a new visitor to the Ledge.Humpback whale, "Touche"

Atlantic white sided dolphins

The dolphins were pretty playful and gave us some close looks as they came right toward our boat! This was only the second pod of dolphins we've seen all year!! What a great morning!

Then, during our afternoon trip, the whales had moved out a bit further....BUT, we saw Raccoon again and this time he breached (jumped) right in front of the boat as we were waiting for him to surface!! Very exciting!! We also saw Tigris again, who was slow-moving this afternoon. A bit further, we found several more whales!! We were running short on time but managed to get a few ID shots of Filament, who was kick-feeding and blowing bubble nets to catch her dinner! On our way in we found a trio of fin whales as well as another group of dolphins!Humpback whale, "Filament" feeding

Certainly a beautiful day on the Ledge! See you again soon!


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Beautiful Day With Dolphins

Just got back from a trip on the Atlantic Queen, where we spent time with Flask, one of our favorite humpbacks, an unidentified fin whale, and a pod of about 30 Atlantic white-sided dolphins! The dolphins were feeding, charging all around with terns flying over head, making their distinctive raspy calls. It was exciting to watch the dolphins all lined up, practically flying through the water!

Got great looks at Flask, as usual, and terrific looks at the fin whale, who did a nice job showing us its distinctive white lower jaw and beautiful chevron pattern!

Fin whale chevron

It's supposed to be hot and humid over the next few days. A boat is the best place to be - come join us!

Dolphins at the stern of the Atlantic Queen

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More Fun Photos...

I meant to post these on Wednesday, and haven't been able to until today. These are some fun photos from Wednesday's whale watch aboard the Granite State. Throughout the whole day, we were treated with fantastic views of Fin whales, and hungry, hungry Humbacks. We spent the majority of our time with 2 Humpback whales, Chromosome and Tripod. With continual bubble feeding displays, it made it difficult to leave Jeffrey's Ledge that day. We also were surprised by several Minke whales that seemed to like the Granite State. Thanks to all the enthusiastic passengers who joined us Wednesday. The sea condtions off shore are keeping us on the dock today, but we are back out tomorrow...Hope to see you over the weekend.



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Thursday on the Prince of Whales

Raccoon, the humpback whale!

Leaving Newburyport yesterday afternoon, I wasn't sure what the day would bring. The clouds were looming and the northeast wind was picking up. The other whale watch boats had cancelled but we pressed on with our hardy group of passengers.

Our first stop was on a minke whale that appeared briefly, and then disappeared. Two other minkes were spotted on our way to the Ledge. The ride took a little longer than usual as we went a little further than we had been going but the whales had moved, as they always do! We came into an area filled with activity- blows everywhere and lots of birds.

We came upon a humpback, who looked very familiar but I knew wasn't any of the whales we had seen in recent years. I checked our onboard catalog and learned this was Raccoon, a male who was first documented 24 years ago! I haven't seen Raccoon on Jeffreys Ledge since my first year of whale watching, way back in 1995!

Raccoon, with a shearwater flying by.

We then found an interesting finback whale who was acting a bit lazy at the surface- just swimming slowly and circling around. For a bit we couldn't tell if there was one whale or two, since this character would lift the tip of its fluke out of the water when the dorsal fin was up too, so it looked like there were two fins! I'm pretty sure we've seen this whale before, or at least a whale with the same interesting behavior. I'm guessing this whale has some sort of fluke deformity causing the up-turned tip, but it certainly does not appear to effect the whale!

Finback whale with the right tip of the fluke showing!

On our way back in, we passed by Raccoon one more time, and then tried to look at a couple of low-profile finbacks. All in all, we had a great trip, found lots of whales and the weather held off!



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