Monday, September 9, 2013

The last few days have brought us all over Stellwagen Bank and Jeffrey’s Ledge! The whales have been moving around quite a bit, and it hasn’t been unusual to be watching whales many miles from the trip from the previous day. Yesterday we headed north to Jeffrey’s Ledge, and with the beautiful clear skies we could see into New Hampshire as well as Mount Agamenticus in Maine. Two blows were spotted very close together, and we came across humpback whales Victim and Patches. In addition, a pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins were swimming around the two larger whales, and treated us to spectacular sightings.

Atlantic white sided dolphins swimming alongside humpback whale Patches.

Patches goes down for a deep dive, with Victim swimming nearby.

The two humpbacks surfaced very close to us for much of the trip, which is my favorite thing to see. They alternated sides and sometimes swimming underneath us from one side of the boat to the other. Just a fantastic day!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

We started our trip today as we found one whale swimming slowly on Stellwagen Bank. We were able to identify this whale right away as Mogul, a regular who we have watched a number of times this season.

Humpback whale Mogul goes down for a deep dive.

 

However, just as soon as Mogul raised his fluke, we noticed another two blows nearby. We made our way over and found it to be Clipper and her calf. Clipper is a Cape Ann Whale Watch favorite and has a very unique dorsal fin, making her easy to identify. We don’t see Clipper often, but she was seen on our Sunday morning trip north of Gloucester.

Clipper’s 2013 calf

We got some great looks at this mom and calf pair. What is also important is a clear photo of the calf’s fluke- now we can identify this whale as Clipper 2013 Calf, and if it returns next season it will get its own name. We were also treated to a tail breach by the calf, and then later the same behavior from Mogul! It was neat to see the size comparison between the two whales- a great day!