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Today we were surprised to find four HUMPBACK WHALES and 1 FINBACK WHALE feeding just outside Gloucester Harbor. At one point the whales were feeding less than two miles from the shore of the famous “twin lights” of Thatcher Island! (photo below) We were able to recognize all four of the Humpback whales seen today. One was a mother and calf pair in which the mother was a very well-known female Humpback called “Leukos” because of her all-white tail. In addition to her pure white tail, Leukos also has a lot of white on her underbelly which can be seen in the photo of Leukos feeding below. The other two Humpback whales were ‘Cosmos” and “Doric”. Cosmos is a female (whose mother was a whale called “Olympia”) and she has a nearly all-black tail with little white dots scattered about it that look like stars in the night sky which is why she was named “cosmos”. Doric (also a female and whose mother was a whale called “Glo”) has a half-black, half-white tail that has a few black markings that someone thought resembled Greek letters. “Doric” is “...a dialect of ancient Greek spoken in the Peloponnesus, Crete, certain of the Aegean Islands, Sicily, and southern Italy.” It seems that we are running out of new names for whales! The reason I wanted to tell you about the individual whales we saw today is because, if you look back at my past sightings reports, you will see that these are new whales to the area. Leukos and calf had been seen a few weeks past, but this was our first sighting of both Cosmos and Doric this year. So it was not the whales that we had been watching farther from shore than simply moved in closer to shore overnight, rather it was new whales coming into the area from someplace unknown. This is what makes whale watching so much fun.... you really never know what is going to happen from one day to the next! Some days it can be a challenge to find any whales, then the next day you find them right outside the harbor. It is important to remember that these are wild, endangered animals that we are going out to look for in their natural habitat. These are not captive animals that have been trained to perform on command. These whales are free to roam the oceans at will, and they certainly do! Every whale watch is unique, and that’s what keeps people coming back again and again. Normally we do not see whales this close to shore. In fact, many times over the past week we travelled as far as 24 miles to find whales. Exactly where whales will be found (and how many will be found) on any given day is ultimately dependent upon one thing: food. The whales that visit our waters each summer are here primarily to feed, so wherever the largest concentrations of small schooling fish (such as Herring, Mackerel, Sand lance, Menhaden, Krill) that the whales like to eat is where the whales will be found. The real question is: What causes the yearly/weekly/daily changes in the abundance and distribution of these fish. There are probably many factors that go into determining the abundance of “bait fish” in the area, perhaps more than we could possibly know. A FEW OF MY OTHER FAVORITE PHOTOS TAKEN DURING THE PAST FEW DAYS : So that’s my report for this past week. Check back soon for another update! Captain Jay 7 seas Whale Watch Gloucester, MA

JULY 24, 2010

LATEST SIGHTINGS :

DATE July 25, 2010 (Totals for Both Trips)

location  7 miles southeast of Gloucester Harbor

WHALES 4 Humpback Whales (including 1 mother and calf pair), 1 Finback Whales, and 2 Minke Whales. Also seen this week were 6 pods of  Atlantic White-sided Dolphins, and 1 Northern Right Whale!

BIRDS 2 Northern Gannets, many Greater and Sooty shearwaters, 4 Cory’s Shearwaters, abundant Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, 2 Laughing Gulls, 1 Bonaparte’s Gull, and a flock of 14 Red-necked Phalaropes

All Photos on this page were taken between July 18th and 25th, 2010

WHALE SIGHTINGS  JULY 25, 2010

A Humpback Whale CALLED “COSMOS” CHIN-breaching

(photo taken on july 25, 2010)

Atlantic White-sided Dolphin

(Photo taken July 22, 2010)

Humpback Whale Surfacing

A Humpback Whale Kick-feeding

“Kickstand” has been one of the most frequently sighted Humpback whales during this past week

Humpback Whale

This Greater Shearwater (the bird seen at top right) nearly got caught by Leukos while she was lunge-feeding!

We have seen A LOT of Blue-fin Tuna leaping at the surface recently, but only Oktay was quick enough to get a photo of one!

Humpback Whale Mother and Calf Diving Together

Humpback Whale Feeding

One highlight of this afternoon’s whale watch was when “Cosmos” did a full spinning head-breach!

“Leukos”

Numerous Pods of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins Have Been Spotted Recently

Humpback Whale (”Cosmos”) Flipper-slapping

(Photo taken July 25, 2010)

A gorgeous shot of a Greater Shearwater taken by Rob Galbraith. Notice the un-even wear on the feathers which create a mosaic of different colors. This feather-wear is a result of the long migration from the southern hemisphere that this bird has undertaken. Each spring Greater shearwaters like this one depart their breeding islands off the southern tip of South America and fly all the way to New England to feed on the same food as the whales!!!!

If you thought that Greater shearwaters had a long migration, this Wilson’s Storm-petrel migrated here all the way from Antarctica! When fall come to the northern hemisphere, this bird will travel all the way back south to meet up with it’s mate, who most likely spent the summer feeding thousands of miles away... perhaps even in another ocean! After reconvening at the nest site on the Antarctic peninsula the female will t lay a single egg, then the two petrel will take turns incubating the egg and going to sea to find food. They depart/return to the nest only at night, however, because too much coming and going during the day would attract the attention of predators such as Jaegers, Giant Petrels, and (these days) Rats.

simply the ocean

The Schooner Thomas E. Lannon under sail in Gloucester Harbor