A Bird and Whale Success on the Granite State

An all day bird trip yesterday provided ample time to do some exploring out towards Jeffreys Ledge in search of birds (and whales)! We found plenty of all critters including grand slams of shearwaters and whales in the state of NH. As for our birds we had 3 species of jaegers (parasitic, long-tailed, and pomarine) with a picture of a parasitic and a long-tailed (with a greater shearwater) pictured below. Our shearwaters included sooty, greater, cory's, and manx, as well as juvenile red-necked phalaropes. For those of you interested in the full list feel free to check out the NH Birding List online since we had lots of other birds :) Now onto the whales. . .

A great day for sighting whale activity which thankfully was paired up nicely with a lot of our bird activity so everyone on board was having a good time! Our grand slam of whales included 20+ Fin whales, 5 Humpback whales, 150 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, 4 Minke whales, and even a handful of Harbor porpoise. We also saw two Ocean sunfish (one breached!) and 1 Basking shark. Our basking shark was a nice surprise considering our last sighting of this species was way back on June 20th.

It was great being able to spend the whole day out on the water and check out some of the offshore areas we have not gotten a chance to check out during our normal whale watches. Fin whales seemed to be everywhere, with a lot of them lunge feeding at the surface. Here a few of the many individual Fin whales we had during our trip. Can you see slight differences in all the dorsal fins as far as shape and size? That is one way of distinguishing individual Fin whales apart.

As for our Humpback whales we got some close looks at both Flask and Spinnaker and passed by Tigris. Flask was bubble feeding which got some of our birders excited with all the bubbles!Spinnaker, pictured below, was a great find considering this whale hasn't been seen on Jeffreys Ledge since last year. Our dolphins were spread out over a large area allowing everyone on the boat to get some great views of these whales playing around the boat.

A beautiful day to be out on the water and many many thanks to our great friends from NH Audubon for sponsoring and leading the trip. Always great to have you all on board with us and getting all of us on so many different birds!

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Tuesday on the Prince of Whales

What a day today was, "A GRAND SLAM" We started off with 2 harbor seals resting in the Merrimac, looking very cute and relaxed. We also had harbor porpoise in two different groups, they were being very good and giving us some nice looks, they normally are quite shy! The seas were calm, and a gentle breeze moved us to a Mola Mola (Ocean Sunfish) who again seemed to want to come over to the boat and meet us. In the distance a mother calf fin whale dropped by and we saw the enormous mom with what looked like a small calf but are quite big 21 feet when they are born. There were several other finners around which came nice and close to the boat, as seen by the photo! We ended the day with Atlantic White Sided Dolphin. I also learned an awful lot about birds today thanks to Dave Larson of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Thanks to Vanessa who adopted "Flask" today and all the other passengers who supported our efforts today!

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Labor Day on the Prince of Whales

What a beautiful Labor Day! After yesterday's less-than-idea sea conditions, we lucked out with glassy calm seas and sunny skies today! What a difference a day makes!

We encountered our 3rd ocean sunfish of the season- look how calm that water is! Ocean sunfish are the largest species of bony fish in the world! This big critter had not qualms about being right beside our boat!

Ocean sunfish (Mola mola)

A bit further off shore we found 8 fin whales nearby, plus a few more a bit further away!
This one below has yet to be ID'ed but has some distinctive scars on its peduncle (the area just in front of the flukes), likely caused by an entanglement.
With all of the fin whales around, at one point we had a whale coming right at us!! (below)


Once we got along side a fin whale, we had excellent looks at the white lower jaw on the whale's right side:

Of great excitement for me, a self proclaimed whale geek, we found a mother/calf pair of fin whales! The interesting fact about this sighting was the ID of the mother. She is fin whale #0532, who we saw last week, but didn't see her calf anywhere near by. We had no idea she was a mom, or even a female, until today!!

Fin whale calf

Fin whale mom, #0532

As we continued on, several humpback whales showed up. Solas, an 8 year old whale, was feeding in its own unique style and even blew a bubble net right next to the boat (much to our surprise) as we were waiting for it to surface!

Solas' flukes

Solas bubble net feeding!

Flask, our adoptable whale, also made an appearance and did a bit of feeding.

Flask

Also, a new humpback visitor was in the area today- Lobo! Lobo was born in 2005 to a whale named Nine, and to my knowledge has not been seen on Jeffreys Ledge before today!

What an awesome day of whale activity and great passengers! Thanks so much for your engaging questions, and my apologies to those of you on the lower deck whom I didn't have time to talk with! If you have any questions, feel free to comment here or email me directly!


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Labor Day on the Atlantic Queen

Crazy fin whales today, they were chin breaching, my photo's are not the best but you can see the enormous white water left behind after there huge heads met the surface of the water! We also had a great time with Solas, she was kick feeding and doing it quite close to the boat as you can see by her tail stock in the photo. She also did some open mouth feeding and made some wonderful bubble clouds. Lastly we saw "Flask" he was being a bit shy but we still saw his distinctive white tail. Thank you to Katy and Dick Frailick who have volunteered the past two years on the Atlantic Queen, they have been a pleasure to work with! Thanks to all who supported our efforts today as well.

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Sunday's Atlantic Queen Trip

The seas were a bit rough today, but we had some great passengers aboard, and lots of whales, which made it well worth the trip! There were many fin whales around - we saw at least 8 of these animals, who are the second-largest species on Earth! At one point, a fin whale was alongside the left side of the boat, and we got great looks at its white lower jaw and its swirly light gray chevron. As was the case so many other times this season, it seemed like there were blows anytime I looked out to the horizon!

Fin Whale

We also spent time with Valley, a female humpback (first sighted in 1985) we've seen several times this summer. Valley's been absent from our area for a couple weeks, so it was nice to see her again. Valley is very distinctive - she doesn't have a dorsal fin, and she also has a v-shaped notch in her fluke, which we finally got to see right before we left!

Valley Taking a Dive

Valley's Dorsal Fin (or Lack Thereof)

Thanks to those who joined us and I hope you enjoyed the rest of your holiday weekend! Thanks again to our volunteer Dan for all his help, and for Robyn Sealock, one of our Adopt-a-Beach team leaders who was aboard today. Robyn, along with friends and family, has been cleaning Bass Beach in North Hampton for about 3 years now, and I greatly appreciate her help with that and with all the data entry she's helped with this summer!

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Sept 4 & 5 on the Prince of Whales- Newburyport

As we always say in whale watching, no two trips are ever alike. Well, sometimes we are wrong! Friday's and Saturday's trips were unusually very similar. Both days we saw lots of fin whales- at least 8 each day, with lots of pairs around. We also had 3 humpback whales each day, and oddly enough, they were the same individuals: Tigris, Solas and distant looks at Flask. A minke whale or two popped up here and there, and some shy harbor porpoises were seen briefly. Then on our way back in we encountered a pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins! The only real difference was that Tigris was doing a bit of feeding on Saturday, blowing a bubble cloud and surfacing vertically in the middle of it! What will we see tomorrow??

Friday, Sept 4th images:

Two fin whales surfacing

Tigris, first seen 32 years ago

Solas, an 8 year old humpback whale

Atlantic white sided dolphin surfacing close to the boat

Saturday, Sept 5th Images:

The above series is of a fin whale surfacing- takes at least 3 images to capture most of the whale's huge body!

Solas, an 8 year old humpback whale

Tigris, first seen 32 years ago!

Another view of Tigris' tail

Fish!

Tigris eating fish!! Check out the ventral grooves (chin/belly area) expanding and the water pouring out of his mouth!

Atlantic white sided dolphins

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Saturday's Atlantic Queen Trip

Flask

Whew! After a crazy, busy summer, Labor Day weekend is finally here. It's always a bittersweet time for me. I love being out on the water so much during the summer, but I also need to start catching up on all of our other projects going on here, and the fall is when we start to do that. I also love when September comes because it's my favorite month for whale watching - it's still fairly warm out, the hurricanes (usually) have not started to hit with much regularity yet, and the sightings are often wonderful!

We saw several humpbacks today, but the species that stole the show (at least for me) were the fin whales. We saw at least 15-20 different fin whales today, and I'm still going through our data trying to make some sense of all the sightings!

One of our first sightings was of a fin whale lunge-feeding in the distance. Even at over 1/2 mile away, it created a huge, white wave as it sped to the surface. Then we saw a trio of fin whales cruising around together. Imagine - likely over 200 feet of whale in one small square of the ocean! We then came upon a pair of fin whales, including one of my favorites - Fjord, a whale we've seen many times this season, and also one of our adoptable whales! Fjord is truly a Jeffreys Ledge regular - we see him just about every year.

Fjord, one of our favorite fin whales

Another fin whale, showing how huge they are!

After seeing several fin whales, we found one of our favorite humpbacks, a male named Flask. Flask surprised us at one point and rolled over briefly and raised his 15-foot long flippers in the air.

Flask, a male first sighted in 1982

We saw a couple other humpbacks at a distance, one who lunged a few times at the surfaced, and also a couple minke whales. We then moved on to what is usually a real crowd-pleaser - a really active pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins! This pod of about 75 included several moms and their 3-foot long calves, and several active dolphins who showed us how high dolphins could leap! (If only my camera wasn't pointed the wrong way when 2 of the dolphins leaped about 4' in the air at the same time...)

Atlantic White-sided Dolphin

Dolphins and passengers. Do you see yourself here?

The one really sobering thing for me were all the boats zipping around the area. Boats and whales must co-exist here in New England, but I'll never understand why people don't take more notice of big boats that say "WHALE WATCH" all over them, and don't realize that they need to exercise caution when transiting the area. I was the unlucky witness to a fin whale getting hit by a sport boat 2 years ago, and replay that disturbing image in my head every time another careless boat speeds through an area where we're watching whales. If you happen to be a boater reading this, please help us by using caution and keeping a close eye out on the water at all times, especially if you're more than a few miles offshore. You can also download your own copy of the whale watching guidelines for the Northeast Region here.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox. Overall, beautiful weather and calm seas made for a really enjoyable day. Thanks to those who came aboard! And if you're interested in adopting Flask, Fjord, or any of our other 9 adoptable marine creatures, click here!

Fin whale with boat approaching

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