| Monday, December 11, 2000
North Shore's Harbor Whale Named!
"Inland" Named for Harbor Habit
 The humpback whale which has inhabited north shore harbors from Boston to Gloucester now has an official name - "Inland." The name has been given both because of its preferred habitat for the past three months, and also because of distinctive marks on its tail flukes which look like an "I" and an "L." The official name has been given by The Whale Center of New England, in Gloucester, and agreed upon by staff at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.
"Whales in this area are named for distinctive marks on their tail flukes," explained Mason Weinrich, Executive Director of The Whale Center of New England. "These natural patterns are born on the animal, and allow us to recognize them throughout their life. They work much like a human face or fingerprint."
December 9, 2000
Between 2 and 3 o'clock today the whale was primarily off of Winter Island, often moving between Winter Island and the Pickering Wharf area in Salem. It would take a feeding lunge about once every 10 minutes, always suddenly, after a two minute dive. Otherwise it was moving around in a large circle, never really going north of Winter Island (although it was in the entrance channel to Beverly Harbor when we just got there). It was great to see almost 100 people taking advantage of the whale's presence by watching it, despite the cold, windy weather.
December 1, 2000
The recent news has been regular sightings of a small humpback whale that has been visiting harbors from Boston to Gloucester during the fall of 2000. Most recent sightings of "The Harbor Whale" have been inside Gloucester and Salem Harbors.
Monday, October 30, 2000
Our whale watch season is coming to a close at all but one of our whale watch companies, but it was a season that has ended with a bang. Our largest aggregations of the year have been seen over the past two weeks, with a lot of whales we had not seen all year moving in from offshore feeding grounds. Surface feeding has been prevalent.
We have also seen several 'mock-battling' groups as male hormones start to kick in! These groups usually involve nearly mature or recently matured males competing with each other to get next to a central animal (in a 'real' battling group, this would be the breeding female). They are very dynamic, and can involve up to 6 whales trumpeting, surging, and even striking each other!
Whales which have appeared for the first time this year include several mother-calf pairs: Cardhu and calf, Fern and calf, and Whisk and calf! Other mothers seen include Nile, Reflection, Trident, Tornado, Tulip; other whales seen include Abrasion, Anchor, Apostrophe, Bilbo, Colt, Coral, Division, Echo, Falcon, Flamingo, Glo-stick, Hancock, Infinity, Kilter, Lavalier, Nuages, Parens, Peninsula, Tear, Tigris, Scratch, Sickle, Stout, Thalassa, Wyoming and many more.
Tuesday, October 17, 2000
Whales and baitfish, a favorite food, continue to be abundant on the northern end of Stellwagen Bank. Over the past several days we have seen lots of surface bait, and have had some great looks at humpback bubble feeding.
Despite the seemingly late date, we are still seeing some new whales. Loon was just seen for the first time this year last Thursday, with a calf! Salt, one of our favorites, has been absent much of the year, but she has also been around for much of the past week. While many people think whales are about to leave for their tropical wintering grounds, they really still have quite a bit of time left; most are here until at least early December. Other whales seen over the past week or so include: Nile and calf; Reflection and calf; Tornado and calf; Sickle without her calf (probably already weaned); Apostrophe; Beacon; Colt; Dross; Echo; Flamingo; Geometry; Lavalier; Putter; Stellar; Tigris; and Voltage.
Tuesday, September 26, 2000
An interesting week, dominated by frequent sightings of pilot whales! Pilot whales are the second largest dolphin (up to 18 feet long), and usually live far offshore where they feed on squid. In the fall, groups will sometimes move inshore to feed on squid and herring. For the past 10 days, we have been seeing pilot whales regularly, and have seen up to 125 on a single day! Groups have contained a lot of calves (some as young as a few weeks old), and a few big adult males.
Humpbacks have also been good; at mid-week last week it looked like whales were sliding out, but they came surging back in last Thursday. One new mother-calf pair; Palette, with her second calf ever. Other mothers seen include Scratch, Tornado and Reflection; other whales seen include Abrasion, Apostrophe, Drip, Dross, Eyebrow, Geometry, Putter, Rio, Tunguska, and Voltage.
Friday, September 15, 2000
 Whales have been great over the past week! After spending most of the year on the southern half of the bank, whales have moved north and we have seen a great amount of feeding activity. Bait has been abundant (on many days we have seen huge schools of sand eels near the surface) and we have had humpback whales surface feeding on a number of days.
Most notable in the past several weeks are: the repeated sightings of Sickle without her calf over the past week (this would be the earliest weaning we have recorded; we have seen the calf by itself several times); others mothers seen include Nile, Reflection, Scratch, Sickle, and Tornado; other whales include Bric-a-Brac, Drip, Dross, Echo, Ember, Etch-A-Sketch, Eyebrow, Geometry, Glo, Lavalier, Rio, Sirius, Touchdown, Voltage, and many others.
Other Whales: a minke whale played with our boat for over an hour, repeatedly passing under us and spy-hopping close by (see photo); we also are happy to report the sighting of several rare northern right whales in our area.
Tues., August 29, 2000
This has been an interesting week, as many adult whales have moved in. It appears like some other area, probably the Great South Channel (on George's Bank), has had some whales leave due to lack of sufficient prey.
 We have spotted a number of adult males and females that had not been seen for months, if at all, this year. This includes whales such as Bandit, Icarus, Moray, Meteor, Sirius, Sockeye, and Thalassa. While most whales have remained on the southern part of the bank, two juvenile humpbacks (Rio and Geometry) have been seen almost daily on the northern end of the bank.
Two of our Adopt-a-Whales individuals (Colt and Ember) have been seen regularly as well. Mothers with this year's calves seen include Milky Way, Scratch, Trident, Tornado, Tulip, and Wizard; other individual whales seen include Abrasion, Beacon, Cajun, Drip, Dross, Eyebrow, Falcon, Fringe, Sparta, Tongs, and many others.
Monday, August 21.
We have had an interesting week. First of all, we saw lots of whales which we had not seen since the start of the year, if at all - clearly whales were moving in from some other area of the feeding range. We also saw a big insurgence of whales to the northern end of Stellwagen Bank, although by the end of the weekend distribution had returned to what it had been by the start of the week, with most of the whales being seen 2/3 of the way down the Bank.
We saw Istar today without her calf; since it was so small, we fear something may have happened to it. We have seen a lot of our younger whales playing in huge patches of kelp (their favorite "toy" - they drape it on their snout, flippers, back, etc)- watch for photos soon! We were glad to see Tulip and her calf, with the calf appearing healthy and happy. Dr. Carole Carlson of Provincetown saw the calf being struck by a sport fishing boat by several weeks ago.
Mothers seen include: Fan, Reflection, Scylla, Scratch, Tornado, Trident, Tulip, and Valley; others sen include Abrasion, Anchor, Anvil, Beacon, Cajun, Flamingo, Fringe, Geometry, Octave, Reaper, Regulus, Rio, Sword, Venom, Voltage, and Wyoming, among others.
Finally, we have unconfirmed reports of a group of 4-5 killer whales being seen east of Stellwagen Bank just yesterday afternoon!
Tuesday, August 15, 2000
Although weather prevented us from getting out at all this weekend, whales for the past week have been moving around some. While most have still been in the same area about 2/3 of the way down Stellwagen Bank, there seems to be some more movement up and down the bank. Prey supplies have gone up and down, although we have recorded some very thick prey traces at times.
Interesting sightings have included seeing Istar with a calf! Istar was first seen with a calf in 1977, and this is her 10th. Interestingly, both of her last 2 observed calves have been unusually small. We have also seen Fringe join with Tornado (her 1988 calf) and Tornado's calf, giving us a single group with three generations of the matriline present! In addition, we have seen a lot more of Valley and her calf. While the calf's tail continues to look terrible, we have seen the calf breach on several occasions, and seems to be moving wherever Valley goes with no problems. The one strange thing it does to is to open and rapidly snap shut its jaw when active.
Mothers seen include: Giraffe, Istar, Scratch, Sickle, Tornado, and Trident; other whales seen include Drip, Falcon, Glo, Grommet, Molson, Pele, Rio, Skewer, Stellar, Tear, Tracer, and Virgule among others.
Tuesday, August 1, 2000
Whales continue to be found most predominantly in the lower 1/3 of Stellwagen Bank, where in past days sand eel schools have been seen everywhere on the surface.
We have had some great observations of Tornado and her young calf, who had not been seen since the spring. Her calf (a young female) has been very active while Tornado has been surface feeding. We also have had a chance to see some really interesting interactions between mother-calf pairs and associated whales, where the mother is working hard to block her calf off from the other whale(s). Why the mother does this is uncertain, but we think it may be protective for the calf.
We also have reports that whales are more abundant on Jeffreys Ledge than they have been in a number of years. Mothers seen include: Fan, Giraffe, Scratch, Sickle, Tornado, Tulip, Valley, and Wizard. Other whales seen include Apostrophe, Aztec, Coral, Drip, Falcon, Fringe, Grommet, Pele, Rocker, Skewer, Sparta, Tigris, Touchdown, and Virgule. Reports form Jeffreys Ledge indicate that, among others, sightings have included Pinball with a calf (her second), Marble, Nick, Shark, and several others.
Wednesday, July 26, 2000
 Whales have responded to huge concentrations of sand lance that appeared over the weekend on Stellwagen Bank. We have seen surface feeding on several days (see 'filtering whale' photo). A number of adults, which had moved out of the area, appear to have moved back in. Mother-calf pairs have been sighted frequently. On our research cruise on Silver II last Thursday, we spotted three new ones in that day alone! We have also seen a few groups of Atlantic white-sided dolphin in the area, the first ones since May.
On a sadder note, we have also sighted Valley with a new calf that is badly injured or deformed. The tailstock is either heavily scarred or covered with white pigment. The fluke is narrow (outer parts may be missing) and the entire center of the tail is hollowed out. The overall impression is that the tail looks like a thin horseshoe. We will not be able to tell any more about this animal until we carefully examine photos of it. It appears to be swimming OK, and has been seen breaching at least once, but we are concerned about its ability to survive.
Among the whales seen: Mothers include Giraffe, Fan, Nile, Scratch, Sickle, Trident, Tulip, Wizard, and Valley; other whales include Aztec, Bullet, Cajun, Drip, Falcon, Fringe, Mirror, Pele, Rocker, Sparta, Thread, Touchdown, Tracer, Virgule, and many others.
July 17, 2000
Sorry about the long gaps between updates, friends; things have been SUPER busy. We will try to get back to our weekly schedule.
Whales right now are great. We have consistently had whales around on Stellwagen Bank throughout the period, but many seemed to be slipping out to other areas around the middle of last week. On Thursday of last week, however, we found a huge supply of sand lance in an unusual area far to the east of where we have usually been working. There were about 10 humpbacks feeding there, but it did not take long for other whales to find it. By the next morning close to 40 humpbacks were feeding there!
Many of the individual whales we have been seeing have been consistent; there has been relatively little turnover with new whales being seen. In the past three weeks we have only sighted one new mother-calf pair, and most of our adopt-a-whale individuals are still absent from the area.
Also notable was the sighting of a single right whale on Stellwagen last Friday. Most right whales are now working their way up to the Bay of Fundy, and it is fairly uncommon to see a right whale here at this time of the year. Our research vessel, Silver II, is one of the few vessels permitted to approach right whales to photo-identify them. Although Dave Morin, captain of Silver that day, tried to get up to the whale for photographs, it was being quite elusive and he was never able to get close enough.
Whales seen recently include: Giraffe and calf, Onyx and calf, Scratch and Stout (her 1.5 year old calf), Sickle and calf, Aztec, Cajun, Falcon, Fringe, Mirror, Pele, Rocker, Skewer, Sparta, Tigris, and many more.
Monday, June 26, 2000
 We've had a few sightings of humpbacks on the northern end of Stellwagen Bank this week, including Pele and Falcon traveling together, but the rest seem to be staying at the Southern end of the Bank. This is not all that surprising considering the tremendous amount of baitfish (sand eels) in that area.
There have been lots of whales doing some impressive feeding. Virgule and Trunnel lunge feeding; Fringe and Octave blowing bubble clouds; and Filament and Thread kick-feeding with their tails. There's also been several finback whales doing consistent lunge feeding.
There are several mother and calf pairs around. Wizard and her calf did some spectacular close-to-boat behaviors. Both mother and calf did simultaneous spyhops (standing on their tails, heads out of the water) next to one of our boats. It was great to see an adult just as curious as her calf! Sickle and her calf have been seen consistently throughout the week as well.
Scratch and her calf from last year, Stout, are still together, which is a rare occurrence. We sighted these two earlier in the year and then didn't see them for about a month. They were resighted a couple of weeks ago and, unfortunately, it appears that during their absence Stout had a possible human-induced injury. It's disappointing to see that it now has a gash across the front of the dorsal fin, but at least it appears to be healing. The injury hasn't seemed to hamper Stout in any way since it was seen doing some pretty amazing breaching two days in a row.
Monday, June 19, 2000
This past week is hopefully a sign of good things to come. Although not consistent, it was encouraging to see enormous patches of sand eels on Stellwagen Bank. The only problem was that the whales were not always there!
Some days we had spectacular surface feeding from humpback and fin whales. Other days we had just a couple of fin whales passing through. When the whales were feeding it was really something to see. Trunnel, a juvenile humpback we have seen for the past few weeks has been doing some great lunge feeding. We also had a great trio of Bilbo, Anchor, and Little Spot feeding on the surface in an amazing coordinated fashion. Bilbo, a female first seen in 1979, is one of our biggest humpbacks and was lunging vertically on the surface exposing almost half of her body.
It was also nice to see Sickle and calf are still around and they even investigated the boat (calves are quite curious of their new surroundings). Overall a good week and it looks like it will only get better!
Monday, June 12, 2000
High northeast winds and lots of rain canceled many trips for the beginning part of the week. Which left us to wonder if all of the bait patches we saw on June 4th would be gone leaving us with no whales. Thankfully on Thursday when we searched Stellwagen Bank, we found a concentration of whales on the southern end the likes of which we haven't seen since April!
Lunge-feeding finback whales, 20-30 humpback whales and a lot of minke whales made for some great trips in the later half of the week. The weekend was even better with many whales moving to the northern corner of Stellwagen, which allowed longer viewing times for many of our boats.
A few of the humpback we identified in the past week were Filament, Reaper, Chimney, and Echo.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000
 An interesting week. We started out with few whales around, although we had some surface feeding from Chimney, Virgule, and Echo, humpback whales in our study population, on the southern end of Stellwagen Bank. These whales seemed to stay in our area, but few others came in. Moreover, the whales that did stay were not staying in any one area for very long.
Then suddenly, on Sunday June 4, we saw bait fish aggregations everywhere. There were literally miles of patches of surface sand eels, the preferred prey for whales in this area.
In these prey schools we saw some amazing fin whale lunge feeding, and saw Echo and Virgule surface feeding. But it didn't take other whales long to find the food - on Monday, there were a dozen humpbacks feeding on Stellwagen! While we did not get to identify all of the whales, we do know that Octave and Thread, not previously seen this year, were in the area.
Unfortunately, today we have 50 mile per hour winds, which could break up the bait schools. We are anxiously awaiting the next few trips out.
Tuesday, May 30, 2000
The past week has been one of movement among our whales. Large numbers are still offshore, but we have seen humpbacks regularly moving through our area. Unfortunately, none seem to be finding the food they are seeking, and they are soon heading back offshore.
We have a number of fin whales on both Stellwagen and Jeffreys Ledge had some great looks at feeding fin whales in both areas over the weekend. There is enough prey to hold animals in these spots; we have one fin whale we have seen regularly on Stellwagen for the last 10 days!
Humpbacks seen have included Quasar, Zebra, Sparta, and several animals we did not recognize in the field.
Monday, May 22, 2000
Weather continues to be a problem in allowing us to get daily observations, as the damp New England spring continues. However, we were able to get out most days last week. Whales were somewhat sparse throughout the week, with most of our observations being of mother-calf pairs or younger whales. Aerial surveys from the National Marine Fisheries Service have indicated that there are a lot of humpbacks feeding in the Great South Channel, east of Nantucket.
Mothers we saw included Reflection (her first recorded calf), Firefly (her second), Salt, and Trident. Other whales seen included Bolide, Drizzle, Roswell and Sparta.
Monday, May 15, 2000
Whales are definitely on the move. The only place where any numbers of whales have settled in is on the southeast side of Stellwagen Bank, with lots of movement in and out of other areas.
We have seen some great surface feeding on a few days - had a great display of Bilbo doing vertical lunge feeding last weekend - but within a few days the whales have moved to a different area. It is certainly making for unexpected sightings on a daily basis!
As only fitting around Mother's Day, new mother-calf pairs are showing up regularly. In the past week, we have seen Firefly, Tornado, Midnight, and Scylla with calves (in Scylla's case, her third in four years!). Other animals sighted include Voltage, Photon, Bolide, Drizzle, Teapot, Entropy, Dyad, Web, Compass, Relampago, Pogo, Sundog, Conflux, Flounder, Tracer, and numerous others.
Monday, May 1, 2000
 The weather is better and the whales are abundant! We have been out all weekend long, and we have been seeing numerous feeding humpback and fin whales, mainly on the southern half of the bank. Sightings included several new mothers, including Sickle (for the second straight year!), Rapier, and Midnight. Other humpbacks identified have included Upwelling, Web, Ursa, Quail, Pogo, Relampago, Compass (free of her entanglement last fall!), Echo, Beacon, Tunguska, Kilter, Dice, Zebra, Mural, and numerous others.
Surface feeding has been sporadic, but we have seen it. Good numbers of both lunge feeding fin whales and foraging white-sided dolphins have also been seen. On Saturday, we even saw a rare northern right whale several miles east of the middle of the bank!
Friday, April 28, 2000
A series of weather fronts over the past ten days has prevented us from getting out to sea in all except one day, and even that was marginal. As a result, we have little to report in the way of whale sightings right now. As soon as the weather cooperates a bit more, we will post an update as soon as possible.
Tuesday, April 18, 2000
After a week of bad weather kept us tied up to the dock in early April, we have been able to get back out to sea several times over the past week. Whales continue to be abundant and hungry!
We have seen a number of adult female and juvenile humpbacks surface feeding, and our first adult males are just starting to appear now. There appears to be abundant prey in the area, and bird life has been clustered around the feeding whales. In addition to the humpbacks, numerous fin whales also have been sighted.
Individual whales seen include Nimbus, Tunguska, Entropy, Conflux, Flounder, Pisces, Zebra, possibly Vader, and several animals that we didn't recognize in the field. Most exciting is a possible sighting of Compass that needs to be confirmed from photos. Compass was last seen in late October of last year carrying fishing gear, and it would be a great relief to know she has slipped free from her entanglement.
Monday, April 3, 2000
 The 2000 field season, our 21st, got off to a great start on April 1 and 2, our first two days on the water. Despite limited time on Stellwagen Bank, we saw between 15-25 humpback whales, as well as numerous finback and minke whales.
Humpbacks were all near the northern tip of the Bank. As we have seen in past years, the first whales sighted are generally adult females (especially those who had calves the previous year) and young whales. Adults we identified included Anvil, Dusky, Dyad, Echo, and Zebra; juveniles included Beacon, Dross, Epee, Flounder, Grommet, Sparta, and Stellar.
We saw some surface feeding, and the additional presence of numerous sea birds in the area indicated that there was a lot of prey present. Overall, the trip was an encouraging way to kick the year off.
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