Tuesday, September 08, 2009

3 humpbacks and LOTS of fin whales...another great day on the Bay

Hello all, it's been another great day of whale watching out of St. Andrews!

On our 10:00 am trip the tide was flooding and there were lots of whales only about 9 miles from St. Andrews just off Bliss Island. We documented about 8-10 fin whales and 3 individual humpbacks. Humpbacks are ID'ed by the pigmentation on the underside of the their fluke, the varying patterns of black and white. They are given names based on those patterns and part of what we do at Quoddy Link is photo ID these whales and our data will go down to the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massechusettes.

This is Pike, the 2007 calf of Six. We saw Pike last season and this young whales was named this past spring.


This is Inlet, who we saw yesterday as well. Inlet was seen last season in the Bay and was labeled an "unknown" and was named this past spring too.


This is an "unknown" (for now) surfacing with Pike at his side. If this juvenile is not matched he will be put up for naming in the spring of 2010.


On our 2:00 pm departure we spent time with the same unknown humpback from this morning and also a number of fin whales off the entrance to Head Harbour at the northern end of Campobello Island, NB. Below are some fin whale photos I took today.



Thanks for checking in today!
Cheers,
Danielle

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