August Trip Reports

 

Week ending 31 August 2003: This week was full of wonderful surprises! Our trips saw anywhere between 2 to 15 humpback whales, up to 30-200 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, fin whales, minke whales, harbor porpoise, and even breaching basking sharks!! Many humpback whales were identified this week including Anchor, Echo, Fern, Pepper and calf, Salt and calf, Compass and calf, Midnight and calf, Fracture, Gibraltar and Tongs!

Bird sightings have been spotty. We're still seeing a few Greater Shearwaters around, some Wilson's storm-petrels and Common Terns and very few Sooty Shearwaters. Northern Gannets are also starting to show up on occasion. The regular birds like the Greater black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Double-crested cormorants, Snowy & Great egrets, Common Eiders, Canada Geese and Mute Swans remain steady in number. We're also consistently seeing Great Blue Herons in the marsh by our dock.

2-day Great South Channel trip report: WOW!! WOW!! WOW!! Unequivocally one of the best trips in my 16 years on the ocean!!!  No joke! By the way, this is Lisa Foerster-Fox writing this! Quite honestly, this was so spectacular I'm still trying to get my brain to register that it was real! This trip takes us to an area just east of Cape Cod - approximately northeast and southeast of Chatham, MA. On the first day alone we estimated somewhere around 100-110 humpback whales. Really! The next day, we estimated 71-74 humpbacks in the area! Unbelieveable to see so many whales in such a compact area - all feeding - mouths wide open. And, when they weren't feeding, they were breaching. No kidding. Some of the most incredible, intense behaviors I've ever seen. Other animals sighted on the trip included 17 fin whales, 29 minke whales, 2 pilot whales and basking sharks!

*Humpback whales identified included: Dome, Fulcrum, Reflection, Staff, Putter, Tear, Anchor, Crown, Rune, Shards, Spike, Giraffe, Mars, Warrior, Colt, Nimbus, Rapier, Scratch, Abrasion, Pogo, Mirror, Sundog, Division, Apostrophe, Gondolier, Rocker, Coral, Mirror, Spider, Ase, Firefly, Seal, Mauro, Echo, Cygnus, Fracture, Barb, Leukos & calf, Midnight & calf, Reaper & calf, Compass & calf, Chimney & calf, Dyad & calf, Pepper & calf, Tornado & calf and Phantom & calf! Yikes, that's alot of whales!

Bird totals (courtesy of Mike Gooley and Robert Kelley) included 16 bird species: 2000+ Greater Shearwaters, 300+ Sooty Shearwaters, 3 Manx Shearwaters, 1500+ Wilson's storm-petrels, 3 Northern Gannets, 950+ Herring Gulls, 125+ Greater Black-backed gulls, 160 Laughing gulls, 2000+ Common Terns, 2 Parasitic Jaegers, 3 Pomerine Jaegers, 1 Black Tern, 10 Red Phalaropes, 1 Common Loon, 1 Red-throated Loon and 2 unidentified swallows!

*Many thanks to Allison Glass from Whale Center of New England and Katherine Gilmour from the New England Aquarium for their help with several identifications throughout this trip.

Week ending 24 August 2003 - An exciting week all the way around! We had anywhere from 2  to 16 humpback whales seen each day, mixed in with minke whales, fin whales and one group of dolphins on the 23rd! Open mouth feeding, breaching, flipper slapping, resting, curious calves - we saw just about everything! Identifications included: Salt and calf, Eyebrow, Cygnus, Barb, Echo, Sirius, Teapot, Parens, Gibraltar, Fulcrum and Soot! What fun!

Bird sightings have been fair. We're still seeing some Greater Shearwaters around, some Wilson's storm-petrels and Common Terns and very few Sooty Shearwaters. The regular birds like the Greater black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Double-crested cormorants, Snowy & Great egrets, Common Eiders, Canada Geese and Mute Swans remain steady in number. We're also occasionally seeing a few Great Blue Herons in the marsh by our dock, as well as a single sighting of a Black-crowned night heron!

Week ending 17 August 2003 - With our trips bouncing back and forth between Jeffrey's Ledge and Stellwagen Bank, we can never predict what a day will bring! Sightings have been very up and down - even when we go to the same place in the morning and afternoon! Those whales are curious creatures! Highlights this week include trips seeing as many as 15 humpbacks - all open-mouth feeding!  We've seen breaching, flipper-slapping, curious whales, you name it! The individuals we've seen have been wonderful, too - famous whales like Salt and her calf, Pepper and her calf, Dusky and her calf, Tongs, Voltage, Echo and a number of other big whales! We've also had trips with up to a dozen finback whales (in groups of four and five - these huge whales are so impressive) and a dozen or more minke whales right in the same area! Good stuff.

Bird sightings have been alternately spotty and incredible. We're still seeing Greater shearwaters around, not so many Sootys. Still many Wilson's storm-petrels and Common Terns. The regular birds like the Greater black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Double-crested cormorants, Snowy & Great egrets, Common Eiders, Canada Geese and Mute Swans remain steady in number. We're also still seeing a few Great Blue Herons in the marsh by our dock

Week ending 10 August 2003 - Two words can describe this week. Rain and fog. Yuck! You never know what mother nature has in store, and this week was a soggy one! Of course, the whales don't mind, they're pretty wet already! Sightings were tough in the fog - a couple humpbacks (Satula and Wy), a couple fin whales, several minkes, and a group of  Atlantic white-sided dolphins here and there. A highlight came at the end of the week with no fog and a breaching minke whale! This was a very unusual sighting, we've only seen that a few times in the past 15 years!

Bird sightings were also spotty due to the bad weather, so we only saw a few Greater shearwaters around. Saw a few  Wilson's storm-petrels and Common Terns. The regular birds like the Greater black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Double-crested cormorants, Snowy & Great egrets, Common Eiders, Canada Geese and Mute Swans were also seen.

Week ending 03 August 2003  - Never boring, our trips have been up and down and all around during this week! Some trips we saw just a few whales, but the other trips - WOW! Anywhere from 2-10 humpback whales, 10-11 minke whales, fin whales and some dolphins just for icing on the cake!!  Many large adult humpbacks have been seen including Flask, Satula, Wy, Salt and calf (yaay!!), Glo, Giraffe and Pepper and calf (yaay, again!). So nice to see Salt and Pepper with their new calves (both of which, we must say, are fat, healthy and very playful!).

Bird sightings remain good with many Greater shearwaters, a few Sooty and Manx shearwaters, many Wilson's storm-petrels, and many, many Common Terns. The regular birds like the Greater black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Double-crested cormorants, Snowy & Great egrets, Common Eiders, Canada Geese and Mute Swans remain steady in number. We've also spotted a few Great Blue Herons in the marsh by our dock.

 

**Sightings with asterisks are courtesy a network of researchers including: Jooke Robbins, Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA; Regina Asmutis, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Plymouth, MA; Katherine Gilmour, New England Aquarium, Boston, MA; Allison Glass, Whale Center for New England, Gloucester, MA; Cynde Bierman, Whale Conservation Institute, Gloucester, MA; Jen Hafner, Blue Ocean Society, Rye, NH and Lisa Foerster-Fox, Center for Oceanic Research and Education, Essex, MA.