Would you like to win a pass for 2 with Quoddy Link Marine?

Hello everyone, in case any of our readers are not on facebook or have not "liked" us yet (here we are) we are having another contest to win a whale watch for 2 with Quoddy Link Marine.  If you are not on facebook I don't want you to miss out so if you leave a comment here (and make sure you check back at the beginning of June) on the blog I will make sure you are entered.

Thanks for checking in and we hope to see you during out 2013 season which starts on June 22!

First Pelagic and Coastal Bird Trip of the 2013 Season

Hello everyone, I have a message from Nick to share, if you are interested in birding in the Bay of Fundy, whether you are a beginner or an avid birder, you are going to want to check this out.  There are 2 presentations, a full day field trip visiting birding sites on the St. Andrews Peninsula and a morning pelagic birding trip aboard the Quoddy Link.  All dates and info are listed below.  You are not going to want to miss this!

Hello! Although from what I have heard it doesn’t seem much like spring yet but the good weather is just around the corner and with it a new and exciting birding season. I wanted to notify of a couple events that people might be interested in. Firstly, I will be doing another pelagic and coastal bird trip aboard the Quoddy Link on the 26th of May.  This is the earliest pelagic trip we have done yet and a great chance to spot resident and migrant seabirds. Last years trip was a big success, with the highlight being a Sabine’s gull. This species was also spotted in May. This time of year is a pretty big unknown in the Bay of Fundy as there are no other pelagic trips that go out; you never know what interesting species could turn up! If you want to see images and information from the 2012 season visit the Quoddy Link bird blog - www.quoddylinkbirds.blogspot.com.

The cost for this trip is $50 and it will depart from the St. Andrews wharf early on the morning of Sunday, May 26th, returning around noon. If you are interested in joining this trip please send me an e-mail and I will put your name on the list. To see information about the vessel visit the Quoddy Link Marine website at www.quoddylinkmarine.com. Please note that this is not a whale watch and no effort will be made to find whales, although they are often found feeding with the birds in which case we will consider ourselves as lucky as on last years trip!


Secondly, I will be teaching a bird watching and identification course through Sunbury Shores Nature and Art Center in St. Andrews in May, the itinerary is as follows;

Thursday, May 23              Time:            7:00pm

Friday,  May 24                    Time:            7:00pm (Presentation with Jim Wilson)

Meet in Sunbury Shores in the Gallery for an evening discussion        

Saturday May 25                Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm  

A full day field trip to sites on the St Andrews Peninsula

Sunday May 26                    Time: 6:30am - 12:00pm

A half day field trip on board the Quoddy Link Marine – Pelagic Birds

Course Fee: Evening Sessions $10 each, Field Trips $50 each,

All four $100

This will be a general introduction to bird watching and identification aimed at the beginner and avid bird watcher alike.  It will focus on migrant songbirds/marsh birds as well as pelagic seabirds. On May 24th, Jim Wilson will be giving a presentation about birding in New Brunswick and how the world of birding has changed over his many years of experience. This should be a very interesting talk and I am very much looking forward to it. The course includes the May 26th trip aboard the Quoddy Link and also field trips to local birding hot spots around St Andrews like the St. George Marsh. If you would like to sign up for this course please send an e-mail to info@sunburyshores.org


After spending the winter in Costa Rica I am looking forward to birding back home. We certainly have a special and diverse avifauna that is just as incredible as any neotropical location. If you are interested in seeing my photography work from Costa Rica you can visit my website at www.njhawkins.com. The songbirds have started to group up and move; they’re on the way! Hope to bird with you soon, if you have any questions or concerns please send me en e-mail
Cheers
-Nick

Facebook Contest

Hello everyone, I hope that 2013 has been treating all of you well!  We are starting to get excited about the upcoming whale watch season that begins at the end of June and in anticipation we are running a contest on our facebook page.  It's a simple "Like and Share" contest so all you do is:
1.  "LIKE" the Quoddy Link Marine facebook page
2.  "SHARE" the contest photo
3.  That's it, you are entered to win a pass for 2 to come on a whale and wildlife cruise with Quoddy Link Marine.  Make sure your privacy settings are set to PUBLIC or just comment on the photo that you have "liked and shared".  A winner will be randomly selected on on April 30/13.

If you are not on facebook, don't worry, I am thinking of having a contest that is just for blog readers in the near future ;)

Cheers,
Danielle

A photographic look at our 2012 season

Hello everyone, well out 2012 season has come to a close and I thought I would take a look back at the past 4 months using photos that I have taken throughout the season.  2012 was a unique season, as every year really is, but this year we had very few humpbacks show up in our part of the Bay of Fundy, we only documented 8 individuals over about a 2 week period.  Also, the number of right whales recorded in the Bay of Fundy from the New England Aquarium's research team was low, less than 50 individuals but there were some unique species sighted in Bay by the team including sperm whales, an orca and a bowhead whale.  But back to our season....

Let's start by looking at the fin whales.  Finbacks are the largest whale that regularly visits the Bay of Fundy and the second largest in the world (the blue whale is the largest).  At over 70 feet and more than 150 000 lbs these whales are amazingly graceful and powerful and so special to spent time with.  In a lot of these photos you can see the lower, white, right jaw (the left lower jaw is the same colour as their back).  This is one of the most unique examples of asymmetrical colouring in the animal kingdom.

Our first finback of our 2012 season was sighted on July 2 and we continued to watch them (mostly between Bliss and Blacks as their was very little activity in the offshore area this year) until the very end of our season.

We saw this individual a lot this season, easily recognizable by the scar in front of the dorsal fin

Another whale we saw a lot this season...you can see how much in injury has improved since 2011

Minke whales are often overlooked, being smaller and sometime difficult to watch but we had some amazing whale watches this season with minke whales seeing breaching and curiosity from these 20-30 foot baleen whales.  You can see the white bands on their pectoral flippers in many of the photos.  These bands, affectionately known as minke mittens are unique to only minkes and can been seen easily on sunny, calm days.

a very curious minke whale

Slice, a minke whale we adore at Quoddy Link

Photo by NJ Hawkins

Photo by NJ Hawkins

This year Nick, one of our naturalists, got some underwater video, including minke whales....





Humpbacks are probably the most easily recognizable of all the large whales and a favorite among whale watchers...but this season we didn't get a lot of humpbacks in our area of the Bay of Fundy (not sure why but most likely they just fed better elsewhere and we hope next season to see them back feeding off the Wolves).  The humpbacks we recorded in our part of the Bay this year were:

Cork - a female born in 2002.  We have seen Cork every season since 2004 and she is special to me
Desert - born in 2008, we also saw Desert last season
Ibex - a male born in 1988, we also saw Ibex (Mr. Burns) in 2007 and 2011
Labyrinth - born in 2008
Mahjong - born in 2007, we also saw in 2009 and 2010
Platform - a female first documented in 1997.  We also saw her in 2009
Unknown - saw on August 21, 2012.  No ID yet
Waterslide - born in 2008, we also saw in 2009 and 2011.

Cork

The north Atlantic right whale is the most critically endangered whale in the world, with an estimated population of around 475.  This year very few right whales entered the Bay of Fundy (less than 50 from the researchers counts and only 1 (of the 6) mother/calf pairs) but we did have a very lucky day on September 18th where we found a right whale off Blacks Harbour.  This whale was IDed as Bongo, NARW# 3623, the 2006 male calf of Couplet, NARW# 2123. This was our only right whale sighting of the 2012 season.  

There are lots of other wildlife to see on our cruises out of St. Andrews including harbour and grey seals.  Seals have such a special place in my heart (I spent a few years helping out with seal research before I started with Quoddy Link in 2002).  This was a great year for seals in our area!

harbours

female grey and harbour

female grey

male grey (behind) and female grey 

red headed female greys!

grey seals on Black Rock

Birds...the birding on our part of New Brunswick is phenomenal and this season was really one of the best.  We even had our first official pelagic bird cruise this season at the end of September and it was a huge success seeing many species including a Sabine's gull, incredibly rare for NB.  For more details on our bird sightings check out Nicks Quoddy Link Bird blog.

Atlantic puffin, we saw so many this season

herring gulls and chicks

Laughing gulls on Whitehorse, a special sighting

sooty shearwater

great and a manx (front left) shearwaters

a very tame, hand raised gull that visited us a few times

So many people ask if we will see dolphins and dolphins in our part of the Bay are not very common but harbour porpoise are...and they are so sweet.  Click here to learn more about the differences between porpoise and dolphin

There are other species under the water that we are always keeping our eyes open for....sharks and Mola mola or ocean sunfish.  This year we had a few basking shark sightings, which can be easier to watch that other sharks simply because of their behaviour.  Nick did get some underwater footage of a basking shark from our Scout Boat and he also photographed a seal with a large shark bite (most likely from a white shark).

basking shark

Female grey seal with a large shark bite.  Photo by NJ Hawkins 

Mola mola are such an interesting fish, a mystery of evolution really.  Here is a little info on the Mola mola

These bizarre looking fish, from the same family as pufferfish, average about 6 feet long and weigh 2200 lbs! The most obviously strange part is their shape, they look like a fish head without a tail. Through the course of evolution their caudal fin (tail) has disappeared and been replaced by a pseudo-fin called a clavus. Their diet consists mainly of jellyfish and to maintain their bulk they have to consume a very large amount. Ocean sunfish are covered in a slime instead of scales and they swim by a characteristic sculling motion of their dorsal and anal fins. They are the heaviest "bony" fish in the world, but its body is actually comprised of mostly cartilaginous tissues which is lighter than bone and can allow it to grow to such a large size which is uneconomical for other bony fishes.

We had a number of sunfish sightings this season and Nick was able to get some amazing underwater footage!

Ocean sunfish, Mola mola

I want to end this summary on a sad note...in memory of the HMS Bounty who went down on October 29th  in hurricane Sandy off the coast of NC.  14 crew were rescued from life rafts and taken to safety.  Claudene Christian did not make it and the search for Captain R Walbridge has just been called off by the USCG.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the crew and the family of the HMS Bounty.

The HMS Bounty off Head Harbour Light, Campobello Island, NB.  She was leaving Eastport, ME after her visit for the pirate festival.  The HMS Bounty also visited St. Andrews in 2010.

Thank you everyone who joined is for our 2012 season, we couldn't have done it without all of you!  Thank you to my Quoddy Link Family; John and Lisa, Mat, Nick, Todd, Jolinne, Dave and Jill...you guys are my home away from home and certainly make work feel a lot less like work!  

See you all in 2013!

Cheers,

Danielle