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Saturday, June 21, 2014

Saturday, June 21

Happy Summer Solstice!

I can't think of a better way to celebrate the longest day of the year than by watching piles of humpback whales actively surface feeding, flipper slapping, breaching and more.  Today was an incredible day on both of our trips.  Although the whales are a bit of a steam from Rye Harbor, it was well worth the extended trips.

During the morning trip, as we approached the feeding area, we were greeted by lots of large splashes. That's always a great sign!  The first whale we came upon was rolling at the surface, and slapping her flippers on the water as she was upside down, on her back.
Fluke and flipper of Pisces as she rolls on the surface

Pisces

We watched her for a bit and soon realized that many more whales were close by. We moved off to see another humpback, and then saw more breaching and feeding in the distance. We pressed on to find a couple pairs of whales, a few single whales, and lots more activity on the horizon.


5 Humpback whales
At one point, 5 of the whales all got together and appeared to be feeding in the same patch of fish!  And nearby we had several whales breaching- coming completely out of the water!

 The morning trip was amazing, and the afternoon trip didn't disappoint at all either!

We headed back to the area we were in during the morning trip. We saw a couple of whales right where we left our AM group but as we looked around we saw lots more activity a bit further out so we pressed onward!

Our afternoon travels certainly paid off as soon we found ourselves surrounded by many groups of feeding humpbacks! Nearly every place we looked, we could see green bubble clouds created by the whales as a mechanism to corral their prey.

2 Feeding Humpbacks

2 Humpbacks- one nose, one tail

Diving Humpback
 The interesting part of today was that between both trips, we only saw two whales that were the same! We had images of 14 different whales between both trips!
Humpback known as "Thread"
And today's whales were different from yesterday's whales even though we were in the same general area! So it seems we have lots of new visitors the the Jeffreys Ledge region!! 

We can't wait to get back out there tomorrow to see who else shows up!

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