June 10, 2012 Whale Watches

8 am Seabird & Whale Tales Excursion - New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance and Krill 

This past Sunday the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance (NECWA) in collaboration with Captain John Boats conducted their all day marine wildlife cruise as a benefit for NECWA. This is an all day affair where we have 8 hours to enjoy ourselves offshore. Having a longer period of time out on the water allows us to get further offshore than we can with a standard 4-hour whale watch. And this extra time allows us to be able to stay with the animals a little bit longer. 

This Sunday, we headed south to the waters off Chatham for we heard reports of a large concentration of whales and seabirds feeding to the east of Chatham. As soon as we left the dock around 8 am, we headed right for Race Point and then worked our way down the backside of the Cape. It took us almost 3 hours of steaming and over 61 miles before we found what we were looking for.  

We were 26 miles east of Chatham when we saw many blows in front of us. Our captain, Capt. Tommy O'Reilly did an excellent job of getting us into this concentration of whales, seabirds and fishing boats. We must have had at least 50 to 80 humpbacks feeding at the surface, some feeding along while others were feeding in small groups of up to 8 individuals. And we had thousands of shearwaters, mainly sooty shearwaters feeding right alongside the whales. 

I want to thank Captain John Boats and Capt. Tommy O'Reilly for making the call that allowed us to head south into these productive waters off Chatham. It was a long ride, but one that was well worth it. I don't think I have had many days like this offshore in my over 30 years of working out on the water. It was a once-in-a-life experience for many of us onboard the boat today. 

Here is a list of the humpback whales that we have identified from this trip so far. I want to thank our NECWA staff (who are also Captain John naturalists) for their time and efforts offshore, especially helping to ID the humpbacks as we headed back to Plymouth Harbor at the end of the day. 

Alphorn, Anchor and calf, Apex, Bounce, Buzzard, Canopy, Cantilever, Centipede, Compass's 2008 calf, Coral, Crown, Entropy, Fern, Ganesh, Habenero, Hancock, Isthmus, Midnight, Milkweed, Mystery, Palette and calf, Perseid, Pharos, Pisces and calf, Pox, Putter, Rapier and calf, Release, Rune, Shards, Springboard, Strike, Stub, Tau, Touche, Tracer, Treasure and Xylem.

I will be working on photos and more video from this trip so please keep checking this post. 


Here is a list of birds that we saw offshore. Thanks to David Clapp, Jim Sweeney, Blair Nikula, Peter Flood and Vin Zollo for their hard work on bird identification and counts. 
Sooty Shearwater            3000
Great Shearwater                35
Manx Shearwater                 4
Wilson's Storm-Petrel         30
Pomarine Jaeger                   2
Parasitic Jaeger                     2
Northern Gannet                40
Laughing Gull                    40
Herring Gull                     200
Great Black-backed Gull   40
Common Tern                   65
Common Loon                    8
Double-crested Cormorant 20
Razorbill                              2

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watching Trips - Joanne

Sunday, May 11---Joanne

9 AM and 2 PM Whale watches aboard the Tails of the Sea

Sunday was a perfect day offshore, both related to whales and weather. We had calm seas, light winds, sunny skies and warm temperatures for the entire day, with a slight breeze increasing as the day went on.

For both our morning and afternoon trips, we ended up on the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank.  This area had quite a few tuna boats, make the most of the abundance of prey in the area.  The prey was so thick, we literally heard the sound of rain on the water as the small schooling sand eels scurried near the surface.  With the glass calm seas, you could see the prey, which looked like rain on the water, as we got closer, you could see the thousands of small schooling sand lance.

Whales were making the most of the prey, with half a dozen humpbacks feeding, along with a dozen or more minke whales and several grey and harbor seals.  All of the humpback whales on Sunday were feeding, with kicks, bubble clouds, bubble nets, open mouths, dragging, even a few surface lunges. We also had very active minke whales, charging through the feeding areas and in some cases, slowly swimming around and near us.  At one point, we had two giant bluefin tunas come charging through the feeding area, creating a huge splash as they chased prey.

We had Wizard and Ventisca feeding together; interestingly this pair formed an association many weeks ago and has been seen almost always together since then this season.  Wizard is one of the top 50 humpbacks on Stellwagen Bank and is the 1990 calf of Petrel.  She is named for a silhouette in the middle of her white flukes that is reminiscent of a wizard tipping his tall hat.  Wizard is the only member of her family that comes to Stellwagen Bank regularly, although she also frequents the Great South Channel, east of Cape Cod.  Wizard has had 6 calves, the most recent last summer. Unfortunately, none of her calves have been seen beyond their juvenile years.

We also got to see Etchasketch, Salt’s granddaughter. She was one of the whales who was satellite tagged last year and has a ‘divot’ scar on her side below her dorsal where the tag was placed.  She was reported the day prior as entangled,  with monofilament fishing gear on her tail.  We were able to confirm she was in fact gear free!  Most whales get out of the entangling fishing gear on their own, some don’t survive and only about 2-3% are seen while entangled and have a chance of being disentangled by a team of rescuers if the entanglement is deemed life threatening. 

Throughout the day, she went from feeding alone, to joining Ventisca and Wizard. Humpback whales, while considered solitary like all baleen whale species, are very social, especially when feeding, and sometimes form loose associations to catch prey, as these three demonstrated throughout the day.

Slightly north of the other whales, we came across Tunguska (a mature male born in 1997 to Leukos).  He is regularly seen on Stellwagen Bank, one of the top 50 humpbacks and regularly seen in the Great South Channel.  He has a nearly all white fluke, with dark lines along the leading edge, thus the reason he was named after Tunguska, Siberia, which in 1908 had a comet explode in the atmosphere above and knocked down 60 million trees.  He also has a very large, pointed dorsal that is easy to recognize in the field. 

Tunguska was traveling with a mature female, named Blackhole. She has a nearly all black tale and a scar (hole) on her flank, thus her name.  Blackhole had a calf with her in 2011.  This pair displayed a variety of feeding strategies, sometimes Blackhole was kick feeding, while other times they came up through bubble rings without the kick. Tunguska would often come straight out, with ventral grooves fully extended.

In addition, in the afternoon, we came across Barb (a mature male) and Division (mature female).  Both are top 50 humpbacks on Stellwagen Bank. Barb was born in 1987 and was Veil’s third calf.  Like many males, his dorsal fin has changed over time and currently exhibits a prominent white linear scar on the right side.  In 2003, he was seen by whale watching boats entangled in fishing gear. Unfortunately, due to fog, he was lost before a disentanglement attempt could be mounted. Two weeks later, he was resighted by a research vessel and although he had fresh scars, he was gear free.  In 2005, he was found associating with another humpback, Nile for over two months. Each year since, they spend many weeks, if not months associated together.  Typically, humpback whales associations are short lived, it’s rare for longer term associations to take place.  In 2011, Barb was part of the satellite tagging program funded by the federal government. 

It was another gorgeous day offshore with Captain John Boats.