Friday, August 01, 2008

Finback whales and NO FOG!



Hello everyone, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link back from 2 beautiful days out on the Bay of Fundy. The past 2 days have been clear, with NO fog (aside from a little inshore fog that settled in for about an hour then left again). With the clear weather we did take a big run offshore to see if we could find something else (and by something else I do mean humpback whales) but no luck yet but the finback whale sightings have been fantastic with many "close encounters". I've included a short video clip below that I took yesterday morning off the entrance to Black's Harbour. It was so evident yesterday how dependent everything is on the tides, as soon as the tide went slack and started to ebb (which would cause the whales food source, herring, to disperse and shift), the three whales in the area started staying down longer and making big moves in 3 different directions.




I wanted to show you this photo I took. Note the lower right jaw which is white and characteristic of finback whales. You can also see the blaze, a band of white leading up from the lower right, white jaw. Behind the blaze you can see the start of the chevrons, V-shapped markings, also white. The blaze and chevrons are unique from whale to whale, as unique as our fingerprints are and it's these markings that researchers use to ID individual finback whales.

The series below is a rather shallow terminal dive from a finback whale taken on July 3o.






Thanks for checking in today.....check back soon for more updates from Quoddy Link Marine!

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