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2009 whale sightings reports: ________________________ 2008 WHALE SIGHTINGS REPORTS: View photographs and view sightings reports from the memorable 2008 whale watching season 2009 PELAGIC BIRD REPORTS : A new section of this site reserved just for ocean birds and birders |
2009 WHALE SIGHTINGS REPORT: June 28, 2009 Total Sightings: 15-20 HUMPBACK WHALES and 2 MINKE WHALES Were Seen on This Afternoon's Whale Watch
Breaching Humpback Whale. Photo taken from the 7 Seas Whale Watch boat PRIVATEER IV in June 2009 After a week of tough whales and even tougher weather there was a BIG change today… well, at least with the whales (the weather was still foggy and rainy!) A huge amount of American Sand Lance (the type of fish that the whales eat) seems to have moved into the area and with them a large number of whales. Today we had to travel 26 miles to the southeast to find whales, but it was well worth the trip! We saw at least 15-20 Humpback whales feeding very actively. A number of times we saw 4 whales lunge together through huge swarms of fish at the surface. At other times there were whales slashing through the fish schools with their tails to stun the fish, or blowing huge clouds of bubbles around the fish to entrap them. We could see the whales rise to the surface with mouth wide open and fish and birds flying in all directions. It really was one of the most intense displays of Humpback whale feeding behavior we have seen yet this year. I could go one explaining all of the various details of Humpback whale feeding behavior but I have done that in many of my past sightings updates and I believe the photos I took today speak for them selves.
In the middle of all this feeding commotion there were a few active calves and juvenile whales. The Humpback whale calves have not started eating solid food yet, they are still nursing from their mothers, and while the adult whales are busy feeding like this the calves can become very excited. I managed a few good photos today of a juvenile Humpback whale that breached 4 times and “flipper-slapped” (pounded the water with its side flipper) in between all of the feeding activity.
Interestingly, while all of the whales were concentrated in the middle portion of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, not of the Sand Lance (again, the small schooling fish that the whale prefer to eat in this part of the world) were. On our return trip to Gloucester we were seeing big patches of Sand Lance at the surface all the way to the “Northwest Corner” of Stellwagen Bank… just 12 miles from Gloucester. I am very curious to see if we will see a large movement of whales to the north, closer to Gloucester, in the next few days. The food is certainly there. We can only hope that the whales will follow. Oh, and some more sunny weather would help too!
One of the Humpback whales we saw today was an adult male called "Crystal". This whale is special to us because one of our naturalists, Karen Smyth, wrote a children's book about this whale and his mother ("Salt".) Unfortunately Crystal has become a rare visitor to Stellwagen Bank in recent years... but he was here feeding today! The photo on the left I took today, the photo on the right was taken when Crystal was very young. Notice that the tail has darkened a bit but the distinguishing marks are still visible.
Karen's Book A photo of "Salt", Crystal's mom (taken earlier this year) OTHER INTERESTING STUFF: I finished putting together a video of some of the great "close-to-boat" behavior we have gotten to see over the past few weeks and you can see it now in HD!
The bird watching on Stellwagen Bank has been great recently. Hundreds of Greater and Sooty shearwater are being see on on every trip with smaller numbers of Cory's mixed in. Curiously, Northern Fulmars are still being sighted regularly and I was trying to photograph one that happened to be sitting close to the boat today when a Greater shearwater flew by making for a great shot of two different pelagic bird species!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ All photos on this page were taken aboard the 7 Seas Whale Watch boat "Privateer IV" Some of the BEST photographs on this site were taken aboard our whale watching trips by our good friend Oktay Kaya. To see more of Oktay's beautiful whale photographs and other wildlife pictures he has taken please visit his site at http://www.whalesandwhales.com
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Feeding Humpback Whale
