Friday August 21 on the Atlantic Queen

Tripod shown below was with her buddy Valley today. Tripod was 1st sighted in 1992, and has had one calf of her own.
Valley is shown her with unusual dorsal fin, Valley was 1st sighted in 1985 and has had 6 calves of her own,these two female have spent alot of time together this summer, perhaps Tripod is looking for some motherly advise!for some mothering advice!

A close encounter with an enormous finback whale, when they are this close it takes a few photo's to fit the whale in the photo. Here is a close encounter with an enormous Finback whale, this whale stayed right along side of us for several minutes, notice the lower white jaw. It seems to happen every couple weeks when these animals seem to become curious about us, this was definitely the case with this whale

Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.

Glowstick and the Granite State...

Whale sightings aboard the Granite State have continued to be in large numbers, and it still surprises me everyday. The heat finally subsided yesterday, and it was very pleasant aboard the boat. In the morning we found 1 Minke, 8 Humpbacks, and 19 Fin whales. Our Humpback sightings included Filament, Clipper and her calf, Patches, Glowstick, and another new arrival for the season, Obtuse. We started with Filament kick-feeding along the surface. Here she is raising her tail high above the surface before stunning food underneath the water.

Patches, the Humpback, is actually the whale featured on the cover of our brochure at Granite State Whale Watch, and it was nice to share with our passengers that we haven’t seen this whale on Jeffery’s Ledge for a number of years.

We were also treated to many fin whale sightings throughout the morning, including several groups of 3 or more. Later in the morning as we were enjoying Clipper and her calf, we noticed a whale breaching about a mile away. We decided to try and check that whale out even though there is no guarantee the whale will continue the behavior, but we wanted to give it a try. As we arrived the whale went for a deeper dive raising it’s tail above the surface. It was Glowstick, a Humpback first seen in 1997. To our surprise, this whale breached a few minutes later! It continues the behavior several times, and also chin breached as well. This is when whales raise their heads high above the surface and smack it down along the water. This whale also treated our passengers to repeated flipper slapping. In all, this whale exhibited 9 behaviors during the time we were watching it. Here are some of my favorite photos.

It was difficult to leave, but we had to get back to Rye to board passengers for our second trip. In the afternoon we found 2 Minke’s, 11 Humpbacks, and 11 Fin whales. Our Humpbacks included Sword, Scylla, Tigris, Clipper and her calf, Chromosome, and Tripod. Highlights included seeing 7 Fin whales in one area including a group of 5 traveling together. It’s not everyday that we are surrounded by the second largest animal in the world.


Our passengers were also treated to Clipper tail breaching next to the boat. Here she is with her new baby.

I want to thank all our passengers for coming out with us today. It was another unforgettable day on Jeffrey's Ledge.

Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.

Thursday on the Prince of Whales- Newburyport

On our way to the Ledge Thursday afternoon, we encountered Tigris, a male humpback whale.
He was doing the things that humpbacks do: breathing, swimming and diving. As we turned to leave, he did one more thing that humpbacks do: breached! Of course it was behind the boat and only a few very lucky people witnessed it. I just saw the big splash!

Tigris, a humpback whale

A little further out we saw a few blows. These few blows turned into many finback whales! At one point, we were next to a group of 5-6, with another 2-3 nearby! Of all the whales we saw, I identified two right away- one is Pemetic, a finback first documented in 1982, and the other is #0532 (no name yet) first documented in 1986!

Three finback whales!

Dorsal fin of #0532

Pemetic (#0312)

As we were watching the finbacks, we noticed a mom/calf pair of humpbacks nearby. We moved over to see them. This was Clipper and her new calf! The pair was pretty sleepy, swimming slowly, until we decided to leave. Then the calf started acting up a bit by tail breaching and causing quite a ruckus as it has been known to do!

We then started for home, and saw two more humpbacks- Fracture and Mudskipper. At on point it appeared that these two were about to join up, but instead they went in their own separate directions. We got a quick last look at Muddy and heading for Newburyport.

Fracture

Just when we thought we were done whale watching, our mate spotted a couple of Atlantic white sided dolphins. This turned out to be a pod of about 12-15. At first they were a bit wiggly and hard to keep track of. But as we picked up speed to leave, they decided to play and were seen surfing in our wake and jumping behind the boat! What a sight!

2 dolphins surfing

2 dolphins jumping!

Thanks for visiting! We enjoyed having you!


Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group || Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.

Thursday on the Atlantic Queen

I was so happy to get out on the boat today and enjoy cool breezes. The whales seemed to be enjoying it as well. They were gracefully taking breathes and doing a bit of napping as well. We had a very friendly fin whale follow along side our port side, our passengers got great looks at the lower right jaw which is creamy white in color. We came across 4 humpback who were all together but split up as we approached one was a female named Churn, who is a new visitor the the ledge. Thank you to all our repeat passengers today and for all who helped support our efforts.



Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.

Wednesday on the Atlantic Queen - Another Grand Slam Wednesday!

Humpback Whale Lunge-feeding Amid Hundreds of Shearwaters

Four species on Wednesday - a grand slam! Don't know why this always happens to me on Wednesdays, but I like it! And one of the best things was that the whales were pretty close to shore, so we got to spend lots of time with them.

Humpback with mouth open at the surface.
You can see the 250+ baleen plates hanging from the right side of its upper jaw.

There were so many whales around, I haven't identified all the ones I photographed, but have included a number of photos here, some of my favorites from the trip. One thing I didn't get very good pictures of was our very rare sighting of a fin whale and a humpback whale feeding together on the same school of fish! I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me - I'd see a fin whale go down, but then a humpback would lunge through the school of prey! The whales feeding amidst the hundreds of shearwaters was a remarkable sighting.

Fin whale, the second-largest species on Earth! (averaging 60-70 feet)

My other favorite part was seeing Filament, a 20-year old humpback who I think has become my favorite whale. I love the way she combines kick-feeding with bubble-feeding and does it in such a dynamic fashion!

Filament 's Tail. When she feeds, she lifts her enormous (about 14' wide) tail up high and then "kicks" it against the water as she dives, which helps concentrate her prey

Filament with a mouthful. See the sea water cascading out of her mouth?

Not to be outdone, Tigris, a male first spotted in 1984, was out there doing his own dramatic feeding, blowing bubble clouds and then quickly lunging through the fish, making a huge "bow wave" in front of him!

Tigris's Fluke

Tigris feeding - this is his snout, or rostrum, coming out of a wall of water!

Then, as if things weren't exciting enough, a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins came into the area! I love the coloration of these dolphins, with their bright white stripe blending into the light gray, dark gray and tan coloration on their sides. The dolphins were active, with a few of them taking high leaps into the air.

Humpback fluke

Two humpbacks (Valley and Newton?) feeding with a third behind them

Passengers kept asking about the trip's totals, and I couldn't hardly believe it myself. Still need to properly write up our data, but our totals for the trip appear to be: 19 humpbacks, 10 fin whales, 2 minkes and about 200 Atlantic white-sided dolphins!

The trip passed really quickly - whales were so close I didn't get to spend as much time with passengers as I would have liked to. So if you have questions about the trip or any of our sightings, please post them here, or you can start a discussion on our Facebook group!

Special thanks to the North Hampton Brownies for coming out and also for adopting Owl this spring!

Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group || Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.

Wednesday on the Prince of Whales-Newburyport

Not only were my parents on board today, but it was also their anniversary so you know the sightings had to be phenomenal! Between the humpbacks feeding, breaching (2 at a time!) and sleeping, along with the shy harbor porpoises and frisky white sided dolphins, I'm not sure what the highlight was!

Filament was feeding in her unique way again- lifting her tail very high and flicking it as she entered the water.
Then two humpbacks were feeding together using a bubble cloud to concentrate their lunch.

Oh wait, make that three humpbacks feeding together!

Tigris was also lunge-feeding and was spending time with Valley and Newton for a bit before the ladies went off on their own.

Valley (note the v-shaped notch in her upper right fluke)

Newton- her tail reminded researchers of Sir Issac Newton sitting under an apple tree, about to discover the law of gravity!

The breaches that are posted above are of Sword who is a male. Mudskipper, who is likely a male as well, was also breaching just before Sword. Tornado, a female who calved last year, was in the area too. Perhaps this breaching was a dominance or courtship display??

As we were thinking about heading back to Newburyport, we got a report from our friends on the Granite State of a group of Atlantic white sided dolphins not far away. We motored toward them and saw several whales in the area with the dolphins! Finbacks and humpbacks were spread out through the area. The dolphins were much more social than the shy porpoises we saw at the beginning of the trip. The dolphins were feeding and racing all around. We got some very nice looks as they were all around the boat.

I think one of the best parts about today's trip was the location of the activity. The whales and dolphins were about 12 miles closer to Newburyport than they were the day before! Less travel time means more whale watching time!

On the way in, a reporter asked me why I thought the whale sightings were so good this year. I mentioned the herring and how the mid-water herring fishery was banned in this area a couple years ago and the the herring stocks seemed to be rebounding. This may be true, but I think the real reason is that my parents have been out multiple times this summer!



Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group || Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.

Tuesday on the Prince of Whales- Newburyport

Leaving Newburyport Tuesday afternoon was the best decision anyone could make to escape the heat on land! We began our whale watching by seeing Clipper and her active calf just to the west of the Ledge. As Clipper was trying to bubble feed, the calf was trying very hard to get her attention by breaching and tail breaching repeatedly! Perhaps the calf was hungry and wanted to nurse.

Clipper's calf and Clipper

Clipper's calf breaching!

Still more calf breaching!

And even more breaching from the calf!

After leaving this dramatic display, we continued on and found a couple solitary humpbacks, a couple pairs of finbacks, a stray minke or two, and then more humpbacks.

Below is Mudskipper, who was traveling with Tigris.
We then found Filament who was feeding in her unique style- surfacing fast, then lifting her tail very high and flicking it as soon as it was entering the water. She would then blow a bubble cloud and surface in the middle!

Filament's high fluke

Filament's fluke flick

Other hungry humpbacks were scattered about as well. Valley and Newton were close by also bubble feeding and coming up with their mouths open!

Two feeding humpbacks

Filament was soon joined by Quote, Cajun and Glostick, but this grouping didn't last. Quote and Filament went off on their own, and Cajun and Glostick kept moving east.

Quote's tail

Another superior day on the Ledge! Thanks to the Gillette family for adopting Pinball! And congratulations Ashley and Ryan!!


Keep in touch!
Join Our Facebook Group || Follow Us On Twitter

Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.