I have said it many times this season...I LOVE MY JOB!

Hello everyone....what a day we had today with humpbacks!

With nothing but light winds forecasted for the entire day we headed immediately offshore in search of humpback whales! We worked cooperatively with Fundy Tide Runners, searching and staying in communication and with a call from Dave on the VHF that he had a number of humpbacks off the Wolves Bank we continued further offshore. When we arrived we knew there were a lot of humpbacks in the area...but it wasn't until I got home and looked at all of the photographs that I knew for sure. Humpbacks are ID'ed by the pigmentation on the underside of their tails and part of what we do at Quoddy Link Marine is photograph all of the humpbacks we see and all of the data goes to the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station as well as the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. On the 10:00 am departure I documented 12 humback whales and then on our 2:00 pm departure we photographed another individual...so 13 in one day!

Below are the humpbacks we saw today...

Tornado is the 1988 calf of Fringe (which makes her 21) and has been seen annually since then on Stellwagen Bank off MA. She has had 5 calves as of 2006 and is one of the "Adopt a Whale" whales at the Whale Center of New England. Tornado was last reported on Stellwagen just 2 weeks ago on September 3rd! She has done some serious traveling. Thanks so much Mason (director of the Whale Center of New England) for the info!!

These 2 are Flyer, from 2 different angles....tails can look different.


This is Platform


This is Jigger, we saw Jigger for the first time yesterday and on both our morning and afternoon trip today.


The 2008 calf of Touchdown


This is Arrowhead, an adult male first documented in 1976.


This is an unknown we have been watching since mid-August


This is Grand Manan (we saw on both trips today) , we also saw Grand Manan in 2007. Grand Manan is a 7 year old male and is the 2002 calf of Fundy.

This is Patchwork, an adult male. I only photographed Patchwork on the 2:00 pm departure today.

This is the 2008 calf of Teather, sighted earlier this week by Laurie out of the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station


This is Mahjong


This is the 2008 calf of Clamp, again sighted by Laurie out of GMWSRS.



This is the only whale that has not been ID'ed yet...the photographs are in to PCCS and Shelley out of Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises and Laurie out of the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station have been a BIG help....THANKS again Shelley and Laurie.



I also wanted to share some other photos that I took today....


Thanks so much for checking in with us today...there is some wind in the forecast for the next few days....we will see what happens.

Cheers,
Danielle

PS The series below is Patchwork