Saturday, September 12, 2009

What a great day...2 new adult humpbacks and Siphon and her calf!

What a great day we had!

On our 10:00 am departure we spent time with a number of fin whales, some off the mouth of Head Harbour, some off Nancy's Head and some more towards the Wolves.


We found many fin whales as we searched in some offshore areas for humpbacks and were pleasantly surprised to find Siphon and her 2009 calf about 15 miles from St. Andrews. Siphon was first seen in the early 1990's and this is her 6th documented calf. This is only the 2nd sighting in our area of this pair and it was so great to see them!

The video below is from this morning



On this mornings departure we also had an amazing sighting of a school of bluefin tuna feeding right at the surface. I managed to get the video below.



The afternoon trip took us immediately offshore in search of Siphon and her calf. With word that they were not too far from South Wolf we worked our way offshore and spotted a tail come up so we stopped and waited. Just a few minutes later we saw 2 humpbacks surface and VERY quickly noticed that this was no mom and calf pair, we had 2 adult humpbacks that I didn't recognize....And I would like to introduce....

This is Crystal
And this is Flyer


We then made our way about 1 mile further offshore to spend time with Siphon and her calf (who we could easily see from where we were with the 2 adult humpbacks). Below are 3 photos from today: Siphon (top), her 2009 calf (middle) and them surfacing together (bottom).



On our afternoon trip we had a total of 6 humpbacks but I was only able to get fluke shots for 4. The other 2 were making very long dives and then we would just see the tail 1/4 mile away.

Thanks for checking in today. Tomorrow morning is our very special North Atlantic right whale trip and I hope to come home with some amazing sightings to share with you!

Cheers,
Danielle

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