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10/25/05: After a stormy
(but whale-filled!) October, we're out of the water for the winter.
This was one of the best whale watch seasons in recent memory, and
we're sorry it's over! Come back in May for sightings reports
for 2006!
Click here for a list of identified
humpbacks this year.
10/1/05: There were tons
of fin whales around today! We also saw a pod of Atlantic
white-sided dolphins, a minke whale and two humpbacks! The
humpbacks were two adult females, "Reaper" and "Trident". The
sighting of Trident was exciting as we haven't seen her in a while!
9/27/05: It's been awhile
since our last update! The fall has, as usual, brought good
sightings. Recently, we've seen a number of humpbacks,
including Clamp, who we saw a lot earlier in the summer, and Hat
Trick, a young whale we saw at this time last year. There have also
been lots of fin whales in the area. Despite the "iffy"
weather, we consider fall to be one of the best times for whale
watching. There are only a few weeks left, so join us soon!
 8/28/05:
The seas were a bit choppy today, but we did get some good looks at
a fin whale and her calf, and a breaching minke whale! The
whale breached about 20 times before it slowed down. While
minkes seem to breach fairly frequently, it's often hard to get
close enough to see it, so we felt lucky today!
8/26/05: We've had
another great week of whale watching, with many fin whales in the
area. Today we saw several fin whales, a very active pod of
about 75 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, and a juvenile humpback
whale!
8/22/05: We had a great
day yesterday. The ocean was glass calm and there were a variety of
whales, include two very active pods of pilot whales, some Atlantic
white-sided dolphins, and several fin whales (some of which were
lunge-feeding!)!
 8/17/05:
We had a "grand slam" day today - we saw all four species most
commonly sighted in our area, which doesn't happen very often!
We had a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins close to shore,
several fin whales (including a single whale traveling with a small
pod of dolphins!), and a humpback, Owl (one of our
adopt-a-whales), doing some spectacular bubble-feeding!
8/14/05: Flask the
humpback was back today, and he was doing some bubble feeding -
blowing clouds of bubbles around fish to get them to bunch more
tightly, and then coming up with his mouth wide open at the surface!
We also had at least 7-8 fin whales around. It was a very dynamic
day, as we had schools of bluefish jumping at the surface with a
variety of seabirds following them! As a bonus, we were closer to
shore than usual, allowing us to spend plenty of time watching the
whales.
8/13/05: Another
terrific day - we saw four species, including fin whales, minkes, a
humpback ("Flask") and a great pod of about 20 pilot whales, which
had two very active calves among them. Flask surprised us all by
breaching several times near the boat, what a spectacular sight!
We only see breaching on about 3% of our trips, but when it happens
it takes your breath away and makes you realize how huge the whales
really are!
Pilot whale photos
(click on thumbnails for larger version):
8/9/05: We had a
great day today, with looks at multiple finbacks, a female humpback
named Newton and a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins!
8/8/05: We've seen
a large number of fin whales this week, with up to 14 in one day!
There have also been many minke whales around. Humpbacks have
been a bit more scarce, but we've seen a few here and there,
including Flask, who was first identified in 1982. Come
on out for your chance to see the second-largest animal in the
world, the fin whale!
8/9/05: We had a
great day today, with looks at multiple finbacks, a female humpback
named Newton and a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins!
8/8/05: We've seen
a large number of fin whales this week, with up to 14 in one day!
There have also been many minke whales around. Humpbacks have been
a bit more scarce, but we've seen a few here and there, including
Flask, who was first identified in 1982. Come on out for
your chance to see the second-largest animal in the world, the fin
whale!
7/14/05: We've had a number of older humpback whales
around this week, including Nile, Tornado, and Reaper, along with some
fin whales and minkes. We even saw Ladder, our adopt-a-whale, the
other day!
7/9/05: Weather has kept us at the dock most of this
week, but we had a great Fourth of July weekend with multiple humpbacks,
fin whales and minkes around. The Granite State made it out today
and reported seeing a few finbacks and minkes, plus one of our favorite
humpbacks, Satula. It looks like we're in for better weather this
week, so we look forward to getting out on the boat!
 6/30/05:
The trips just keep getting better and better. As scientists,
we're wondering if and when things will eventually slow down. But
we'll take these great trips when we can get them! Over the week,
there have been many old friends in the area. One of the most exciting
sightings was that of Pinball, one of our adopt-a-whales, and her new
calf! The calf was very active today. We have also continued to
see Bungee and her calf, and the calf was extremely active on Wednesday
- it breached about 50 times, and when it wasn't breaching, it was
flipper-slapping! We also have seen Tornado,
 Nile,
Quote, and Clamp, among others. All of these whales were first
identified/born in the late 80's or early 90's. It is unusual for us to
have all of these adult humpbacks on Jeffreys Ledge at this time of year
(if we look at our last 10 years of data), but it is refreshing to have
so many whales around!
6/26/05: We had a great weekend on the water! There are
still multiple humpbacks and fin whales around. Yesterday, our affiliate
boats saw finbacks, minkes and humpbacks, including a whale named
"Flask" who was first identified in 1982. Flask is also the whale
we used as a model for our t-shirt design, so it's always exciting to
see this familiar whale!
Today was baby day - we got great looks at "Bungee" the
humpback and her calf, and then saw several fin whales, and among them
was the fin whale mother and calf we have seen several times this month.
See below for pictures (click each photo for a larger version)!
6/24/05: There were multiple humpbacks in the area this
week, including two mother/calf pairs (one mom was "Bungee", the other
was "Knuckles"), and individuals named "Cardhu" and "Newton". We also
had great luck sighting fin whales this week, as there were many fin
whales in the Jeffreys Ledge area. Join us this weekend and beat
the heat!
6/18/05: After a week of gray weather, today was
beautiful and sightings were
great. We spent our time at an area just inshore of Jeffreys Ledge
called Old Scantum, where there were several fin whales and minkes and a
humpback named Satula, a whale who was first sighted in 1988 and has
been seen almost every year since we began tracking it in 1996!
6/12/05: Fin whales and minke whales continued to be
abundant, despite hazy and foggy continues over the weekend. There was
also a humpback whale on Jeffreys Ledge on Saturday!
 6/9/05:
We've had lots of fin whales and minkes around this week. Today
the Atlantic Queen and Prince of Whales
were in an area just west of Jeffreys Ledge and surrounded by whales!
We estimate there was a total of 7-9 fin whales and at least 5 minke
whales in the area. Below is a photo taken by summer intern Nadya
Ramirez aboard the Atlantic Queen II, when passengers were lucky
enough to have a fin whale surface right next to the boat!
One of the exciting sightings of this week is that of a
whale we've named Comet, who was previously one of our adopt-a-whales!
We first started tracking Comet in 1997, and haven't seen this whale
since then - until now - Comet has been seen multiple times over the
past week!
6/7/05: On Saturday, June 4 sightings included a juvenile
humpback, two fin whales and a pod of about 50 Atlantic white-sided
dolphins. Saturday was a pretty good day for whale watching, while
things were slow on Sunday. Some whale watchers on Sunday got
terrific looks at a minke whale, one of our first of the season.
6/3/05: We're whale watching! Our trips have started out
pretty well so far.
There have been multiple humpbacks, fin whales and minkes in the area.
Our first trip was on May 15, when whale watchers on the Granite
State were treated to the sight of lunge feeding fin whales! (see
photo below, thanks to naturalist Beth Boucher for providing it!)
On Memorial Day weekend, all the boats were out, and
sightings on Jeffreys Ledge were good. On Saturday, there were multiple
humpbacks and fin whales in the area. We've identified a few of
the humpbacks so far, and they included Apostrophe and Orion (two whales
that have been around awhile - they are both at least 20 years old!).
On Sunday, there were still whales, but they were fairly
spread out. The day wa s
an unusual one, in that we spent most of our time with an entangled
humpback. The whale had a life-threatening entanglement in fishing
gear that passed through the whale's mouth, over its back and wrapped
around its tail.
The entanglement was first spotted by the Prince of
Whales. When a boat spots an entangled whale, the procedure is
to report the sighting to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown
(CCS), which has a whale disentanglement team. The whale watch
boats are encouraged to "stand by" the whale until the team arrives,
because if the whale is lost, it may never be disentangled, which can be
life-threatening. Throughout the afternoon the Prince of
Whales, then the Granite State, then the Atlantic Queen II
stood by the whale until a Sea Tow boat arrived to relieve our whale
watch boats before the CCS team arrived and was able to free the whale.
A full report of the disentanglement, along with a diagram, can be found
here: http://coastalstudies.org/what-we-do/whale-rescue/latest-disentanglement.htm.
Thanks to the captains and crews of the whale watch boats and all our
passengers for their patience and support throughout the day!
We also had an exciting sighting this week - despite
foggy conditions, whale watchers on the Prince of Whales saw on
of our adoption whales, Owl along with some other humpbacks!
2004 Sightings
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