Whale Talk/Reports » Zack

June 28 2012

Zack — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:26:31 +0000

The last few days have been great conditions for finding whales. Flat seas and great visibility has revealed that the whales are still feeding on Stellwagen Bank. We spent most of today’s trip on this season’s most familiar cow/calf pair; Boomerang and her very active calf. Nearly every time this calf goes on a dive it lifts its fluke high into the air which is not common for calves this time of season. The calf also threw us off guard today when it split from it’s mother and went off on its own for a few minutes before racing back over to her.

We ended our trip on a pair of fin whales that were swimming amongst a pod of Atlantic White sided Dolphins. I’m always so curious to see how different whales interact with each other but when you get two different species interacting, it is really fascinating. It is still a mystery as to why they do this. What is even more curious is that this is the second day in a row we have seen this type of interspecies interaction, and yesterday they were probably about 15 miles north of where they were spotted today!

6/18/2012

Zack — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 21:15:14 +0000

We went down to Stellwagen today and the seas became progressively nicer throughout the trip. The whales have been on the move lately so we never know what to expect these days. On today’s trip we picked up a humpback whale named Boomerang swimming with her calf. This was the first time anyone on the boat had actually seen this whale. We spotted the pair not by blows but instead by the huge splashes that the calf was generating by breaching out of the water continuously! We must have seen 25 breaches and close to the boat. Boomerang and calf were not the only whales out there either. Just a few hundred yards away were another mom and calf. These were Scylla and calf. They crossed paths with Boomerang and continued on. Also on Stellwagen today was a small basking shark and a huge fin whale!

May 27, 2012

Zack — Mon, 28 May 2012 01:39:02 +0000

A lot more feeding behaviors on Stellwagen today. There were whales doing different behaviors in every direction. Some highlights were when we had a very active calf played with the boat while mom was feeding and when a humpback named Putter swam right underneath the boat then proceeded to lobtail for the rest of the trip.

Saturday, May 26 2012

Zack — Sun, 27 May 2012 05:00:50 +0000

It is trips like the ones we have been having lately that every whale watcher hopes for. I think most people would agree that is well worth the ride. When there are this many whales in one area it allows us the opportunity to be a little bit picky about which behaviors we stop by to observe. Today we started on a group of humpbacks that were doing some bubble net feeding. Then a little ways away we saw a whale doing some pec slaps and full body breaching! We ended the trip on a whale named Etch-A-Sketch who never allows for a boring whale watch. I’m pretty sure every time I have seen this whale it is furiously kicking away at the surface only to come up with a huge open mouth full of food. Etch definitely isn’t a shy whale either. More often than not, this feeding happens a couple dozen yards from the vessel. The best part about trips like this is that no matter where you are on the boat, there is something happening near by.

Friday, May 25 2012

Zack — Fri, 25 May 2012 22:19:39 +0000

There were about 7 hungry humpbacks on southern Stellwagen today. Even in some pretty thick fog, we spent our trip with a large association of whales that were using bubble nets right next to the boat to trap the sand eels. The sea was boiling with all of the bait in the area, and the whales were definitely taking advantage. Some of the individuals we had were Canopy, Centipede, Bounce and Mostaza.

Sunday, May 20 2012

Zack — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:45:09 +0000

Another exciting day on southern Stellwagen. The whales were slightly closer to home today. When we first got to the area where there were at least 20 humpbacks, you could see the focus was on feeding. The bubble nets were floating to the surface in all directions, the birds were going crazy and whales were surfacing on all sides of the boat. We started by watching one group of 3 adult humpbacks and one calf surface feeding right next to the boat. The mom was a whale named Anchor (interestingly, we spotted one of Anchor’s calf from a previous year, Snare, in the area as well), and she was feeding with Fracture. The last one never fluked, so we were not able to get an ID. As we were watching the feeding, a large splash caught the eye of the captain a short ways away; so we decided to investigate. A whale named Bowline was engaged in almost every surface behavior that humpback whales are capable of. We saw all kinds of breaching, lob tailing, and pec slapping. What was most interesting about this was as soon as this surface behavior began, it seemed that most of the feeding behavior stopped, and all of the whales in the area switched gears and were surface active, like Bowline. Very exciting for everyone on board!