Thursday morning, we headed out to Jeffreys Ledge to the
area where we left some whales on Wednesday afternoon. As always, things had
moved around a bit but we eventually found a number of huge fin whales! The
first one was lunging at the surface, catching small mackerel. Surrounding this feeding fin whale were
dozens of shearwaters and bluefin tuna!
It was a crazy feeding frenzy!
From here, we saw more blows in the distance. More fin whales, birds and
tuna!
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Great shearwater taking off |
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Great shearwaters |
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Fin whale |
On our way home we passed by a minke whale and then found a
humpback whale relatively close to shore! To our surprise, this humpback whale,
named Zorro, was blowing bubble clouds to corral his prey and charging up
through the cloud to catch the mackerel trapped within the cloud. Quite
spectacular! If that wasn’t good enough, Zorro then surfaced right next to the
boat and even hung out alongside us for several breaths.
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Zorro with the Isles of Shoals in the background |
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Zorro feeding on mackerel |
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Zorro coming in for a closer look at us |
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Zorro imitating an airplane :) |
Even after 25 years of
watching whales, I am still amazed by the calmness and curiosity of these huge
animals.
Thursday afternoon, we found Zorro again just south of the
Isles of Shoals. He was wiggly at first but then settled down and did more
bubble feeding!
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Zorro fluking |
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Zorro rolling on his side, showing his white flipper |
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Zorro feeding |
Venturing offshore, we
found at least half dozen fin whales likely more! Some were in pairs while others were single.
Fin whales are the 2nd largest species of whale and they rarely
disappoint.
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Fin whale blaze marking |
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Fin whale |
We even had a tiny
hummingbird visit us on this trip- likely blown offshore and looking for a dry
place to rest.
Friday morning’s trip was an exercise in patience and also
conservation. We received a report of a whale just off Hampton Harbor. We went
south to investigate. For the past couple of years, we have been seeing
juvenile whales close to shore, between Rye, NH and Plum Island, MA so this
wasn’t a complete surprise to have a whale just a few miles off the beach. Upon
arrival, we found a young humpback whale virtually sleeping! It surfaced,
logged (floated) at the surface for 5-10 minutes, breathing occasionally, and
then diving for a few minutes before repeating the logging behavior. Logging is
a humpback whale’s way of sleeping. They are never completely asleep like we
are, but instead rest half of their brain at a time so they are always
partially conscious, knowing when their blowholes are above the water to take a
breath! Pretty ingenious! Nonetheless, we got great looks as we drifted along
with the sleeping whale. This individual had obvious healed scars from a small
boat collision in its past. Fortunately, this whale survived.
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Unidentified juvenile humpback whale with propeller scars |
We then heard a report of another whale even closer to shore
off the Merrimack River. A fin whale was also basically sleeping in amongst all
the boat traffic and lobster trap gear. That’s a pretty poor choice in habitat for
a whale to take a nap! Boat strikes and entanglements are two of the leading
causes of death for whales! As we left,
the fin whale started moving out to the southeast away from all of the mayhem.
Further offshore, we tried looking at a couple of minke
whales that were being on the elusive side. Eventually we found a rather
friendly one! It came up right next to the boat, displaying its entanglement
scars on its flukes! Two thick vertical white lines (scars) ran down the length
on each of the flukes, indicative of a prior entanglement. Minke whales are
rather susceptible to drowning from entanglements because they are too small to
break free from the gear. Luckily for this whale, it persevered!
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Minke whale |
Just before we made our approach for Rye Harbor, we spotted
another minke whale. We were just pointing it out, passing by it when we
realized it was “Finke” (finless-minke). This whale has been seen since 2011
when it first lost its fin due to a boat collision. We have been monitoring
Finke annually since its first sighting, watching the injury heal over time. We
weren’t able to get any photos of Finke since this whale is understandably shy
around boats, but great to see that it is back for another year!
Friday afternoon, we heard reports of a whale close to shore
just south of the Merrimack River. We decided that it was likely one of the
close-to-shore whales we had on our morning trip and instead headed to the
southern end of Jeffreys Ledge, just off of the tip of Cape Ann.
We passed some elusive whales on our way and
there we found at least 4 if not 5 humpback whales, a minke whale and harbor
seal. The pair of whales we spent most of our time with was our friend Pinball
and her 8
th calf!! She and her calf have been moving around quite a
bit this summer so we were excited to see her again!
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Pinball! |
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Pinball's calf |
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Pinball and her calf |
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Pinball's curious calf |
The calf checked us out a couple of times
while Pinball was taking longer dives. We even saw what appeared to be nursing
behavior from the calf!
One of the
whales on the outskirts was Satula! Both Pinball and Satula are
adoptable
through the
Blue Ocean Society!