1987 8/26 Fissure first sighting
1987 GOT OFF TO A SLOW START:
We were ready by the time the 1987 season rolled around, but... the weather was not. We made one trip in May and saw Dolphins and a Minke whale but it was a teaser since it blew and rained so hard we couldn't go again for another two weeks.
6/16/87 NURSE AND FIVEJ
Finally on June 16th it cleared. The seas were still a little "lumpy" but we were eager to go and were lucky to encounter two humpback whales soon after we got to Jeffrey's Ledge. They travelled together for the hour we were with them, diving in sync and always coming up side-by-side. When I got home I was able to find them in the catalogue. They were two adult females: one Nurse who was first seen in 1979 and the other FiveJ first seen in 1983. Both had had calves, (as a matter of fact I had seen FiveJ with her calf the year before). This must have been a year off for them and I wondered if pregnant females seek out each others company in a loose sort of way?
This is Nurse "fluking up" to do a deep dive. Romantic as this photo may be, water dripping off her fluke and all, it is practically useless to a person trying to match it with pictures in the catalogue.... you would have to crane your head way over to see underneath.... hahaha. If you ever go on a whale watch and see a whale "fluking" wait a second longer until it's tail comes up more. I know this is Nurse because she showed her tail a few seconds later.
6/18/87 NURSE CONE AND DERECHA
Two days later we met Nurse again. This time she was with two different adult females, Cone and Derecha. Like Nurse , I suspect these other two were in between calves, perhaps pregnant and taking the summer off.
When we came upon them they were "logging" at the surface, lying quietly close together blowing now and then. Whales are often seen resting at the surface. As we approached, Cone (the closest whale with the white dorsal)"wheeze blew" as if to say... that's close enough. We kept our distance and drifted along with them for a while.
Cone tipped her tail towards us, rolling slightly to her left so a bit of her fluke rose out of the water. After drifting with them for about 10 minutes, they humped their backs and all slid under in unison.
Each trip on the boat had its own quality, this one was very quiet and peaceful... no one spoke much, everybody seemed to be soaking in languidness of the three whales.
HELPFUL HINT: If you click on the photograph it will take you to a larger size posted on Flickr. There are often some notes of explaination on the pictures in Flickr.
6/19/87 CONE AND DERECHA AGAIN
Even though it was pretty choppy, we went out again the next day and came upon Derecha and Cone in just about the same place we had left them; Nurse was not with them this time. Derecha's dorsal is closest, Cone's is tucked in close behind, just barely visible. The two females dove and came up in unison remaining so close their flippers must have brushed. It seemed really companionable.
The blue boat in the background is the deep sea fishing boat that belonged to our boss. He had arrived at Jeffrey's Ledge before us and helped us find these two.
There is a tiny brown bird in the lower right hand side of the picture, it is a wilson's storm petrel. It is a good sign to see lots of these little birds on the water because they seek the same feed as whales. (I suggest you follow the link back to the larger original photograph to see detail more clearly)
Cone's fluke is on the left. Derecha is just about to dive too..... get ready!
Ahhh Derecha for sure! Notice how different their flukes are. Derecha's is very dark and Cone's is very white.
Humpback whales are very blubbery compared to the stream-lined Finback whale and so when they want to make a deep dive they have to bring up their tails to counteract their bouyancy. A Finback would just slide down under the surface and be gone.
Here is Cone's fluke again, very white. Now this is a photo matchers dream shot if I do say so myself. I sent this picture to Allied Whale where someone "took it through" the catalogue (of 6,000 individual fluke shots!), trying to find a match. They found Cone very quickly and were able to tell me who she was and a little about her history. That is how I found out the identity of the whales I have been talking about.
The seas were still pretty rough that day, but rough seas often inspire whales to breach or other noisy active things. As we were arriving one of the two lay on its back and whapped first one then the other flipper hard on the water. Then Cone
"taillob", or slapped her fluke repeatedly on the water. Sometimes seasickness is the price you pay for the most interesting behavior!
1987 6-19 cone 2
Originally uploaded by yeimaya.
A LONG SPELL OF NO WHALES! TIME FOR A BRIEF WHALE BIOLOGY LESSON
We had gotten off to such an exciting start seeing these female humpacks for three days in a row that we were ready for a great summer. It rained for a week straight, and when we finally could go out again... not a humpback to be seen!
Somedays we would go out and there was NOTHING... Often I found myself describing what a humpback/finback would look and act like if we only saw one. We certainly were made aware that those extraordinary whale encounters come with either huge amounts of luck or perserverance. Most of the people on the boat were philosophical about it, others expected a Disney experience and got pretty frustrated. During those many days in July and early August when we went out and saw nothing, I talked a lot about whale biology and behavior, any bits of information I could think of to make the trip more interesting... so I'll do it here too just to give an authentic flavor to the story of that summer.
There are two main families of whales, one with teeth (odontocetes) and the other with baleen (mysticetes). They are pretty easy to tell apart.
Odontocetes have teeth for grabbing food and a single blowhole or nostril. The largest is the Sperm whale (50feet) but other members of this family include dolphins, pilot whales, narwhals, belugas, orcas etc. They eat fish, squid even other marine mammals.
Mysticetes have baleen for filtering food and have two blowholes. The largest is the Blue whale (100 feet) others are finbacks, humpbacks, minkes, right whales, gray whales etc. They eat some small schooling fish but mostly huge dense concentrations of tiny krill, sand lance or copepods.
Finally in mid- July we began to see some whales again:
Now and then we saw some Atlantic Whitesided dolphins.... usually in large groups. There were mothers with their tiny calves tucked in close besides them, mid-sized rambunctious ones that may have been the teenagers, and larger adults. Every once in a while small clusters would break off from the feeding groups and ride our bow. It looked like a great diversion for them, and certainly was for us!
86 7-11 AWD05
Originally uploaded by yeimaya.
Finbacks started coming into the area on a regular basis. Even though our encounters were usually brief, they were always breath taking. They are 70 feet long, very slender and super fast swimmers (25 knots, certainly faster than our boat). They are called the greyhounds of the sea for good reason, which makes observing them difficult and often frustrating because they could cover such distance under water that they could leave the area without us even knowing.
Allied Whale also holds the catalogue of individual finbacks. Unlike humpback which show distinctive flukes when they dive, finbacks rarely dive and so other distinguishing marks have to be used. Researchers found they could use the shape of their dorsal fins and the patterns behind their blowhole on the right sides.
Finbacks are one of the few asymetrically marked animals. They have a white right jaw and a dark left one. No one is certain why that is. There is some speculation that they turn onto their right side when they are feeding and this gives them the proper countershading to make them less visible to their prey. Like humpbacks, they feed on small schooling fish as well as krill and copepods and have baleen rather than teeth.
Sometimes we would see a Minke whale... the smaller cousin of the Finback. Minkes are 30-35 feet while Finbacks are 70-80 feet, but have the same streamlined bodies and speedy action. One way to tell a minke from a finback is: when a Minke comes to the surface, you can see the blowhole and dorsal fin at the same time. When a finback blows a lot of sleek muscular back slides by before the dorsal shows itself and by that time its blowhole has gone under the water.
We ended up calling them "stinky Minkes" because they were so frustrating to watch. Someone might spot one but by the time we got the boat turned around and we redirected everybodies attention... the were gone! That was OUR problem, they were going about their lives just as they were supposed to.
Right whales are extremely endangered so it was a great honor to see one. We were extremely careful not to approach, or disturb them. Twice that July we came upon a mother and her calf. We were impressed by how differently they moved ... she and her calf seemed so ponderous compared to the speedy finbacks and even the slower humpbacks. Right Whales are the slowest and most bouyant of baleen whales and they feed exclusively on tiny krill and copepods while humpbacks might eat some small fish.
FIRST SIGHTING OF FISSURE 8/26/87
After a long July with no Humpbacks, they finally began filtering into the Jeffrey's Ledge area by mid August. Just a few at first but more and more each day until by the end of August we would see several at a time. Many of them were mothers with their calves. The little tiny blip to the left of the larger dorsal in this picture is a calf .
On August 26th we were overwelmed by variety whales to watch. Three or four Minke's and at least three finbacks were zooming around, popping up unpredictably. Dolphins rode our bow and six humpbacks were within sight! Two of them were mother and calf pairs.
Suddenly we picked out our old friend Fissure from the previous year, tagging along with Sargent and her calf. (The picture above is of Sargent and her tiny calf). The three stayed very close together.
Fissure didn't seem the slightest bit interested in us, but seemed to focus his attention on the little calf: he is lying on his left side, the right side of his fluke sticking up in the air. He is close enough to the little calf that his nose is possibly touching its fluke. The calf's tiny dorsal is poking out of the water.
If you look really carefully (perhaps click on the link back to flickr), you can see the light green water caused by the white of his flipper and a big flat "foot print" from the upsweep of the mother's tail. I think she is just in front of her calf, but it is hard to tell.
That is one of the frustrations and fascinations of studying a marine animal... the majority of the important behaviors happen under water out of sight!
The mother and calf "fluked up" making a deep dive and we figured they would be down for a while. It seemed like a good time to leave them for we were even more sensitive about disturbing mothers and calves than adults.
Fissure followed close behind so, assuming the long encounter was over, we started to back away and head for home.
Suddenly the captain let out a yelp and took the boat out of gear. Fissure came up right next to us with a loud whoooosh of exhaled air. He was so close I couldn't get the camera to focus. It didn't help that I was shaking in surprise!
Now we seemed more interesting than the mother and calf. We could see them off in the distance, coming up and blowing once in a while. But Fissure stayed close to us. He dove and circled the boat just a few feet below the surface so we could see his whole body. His tail rose and fell leisurely, leaving "footprints" at the surface. His long white flippers glowing green through the water, worked as stabilizers, like wings of a gliding gull delicately changing pitch to maintain his course. When he reached the stern of the boat, he used one flipper like an oar to help him turn to continue his circle of the boat.
It was a very mellow encounter, not nearly as rambunctious as the previous summer. He seemed content to swim around us or lay close to the surface with his nose (rostrum) almost touch the boat. Finally it was time to go, and on the way home we looked through the log from 1986... sure enough, our first 1986 encounter with Fissure had also been at the end of August.
We were ready by the time the 1987 season rolled around, but... the weather was not. We made one trip in May and saw Dolphins and a Minke whale but it was a teaser since it blew and rained so hard we couldn't go again for another two weeks.
6/16/87 NURSE AND FIVEJ
Finally on June 16th it cleared. The seas were still a little "lumpy" but we were eager to go and were lucky to encounter two humpback whales soon after we got to Jeffrey's Ledge. They travelled together for the hour we were with them, diving in sync and always coming up side-by-side. When I got home I was able to find them in the catalogue. They were two adult females: one Nurse who was first seen in 1979 and the other FiveJ first seen in 1983. Both had had calves, (as a matter of fact I had seen FiveJ with her calf the year before). This must have been a year off for them and I wondered if pregnant females seek out each others company in a loose sort of way?
This is Nurse "fluking up" to do a deep dive. Romantic as this photo may be, water dripping off her fluke and all, it is practically useless to a person trying to match it with pictures in the catalogue.... you would have to crane your head way over to see underneath.... hahaha. If you ever go on a whale watch and see a whale "fluking" wait a second longer until it's tail comes up more. I know this is Nurse because she showed her tail a few seconds later.
6/18/87 NURSE CONE AND DERECHA
Two days later we met Nurse again. This time she was with two different adult females, Cone and Derecha. Like Nurse , I suspect these other two were in between calves, perhaps pregnant and taking the summer off.
When we came upon them they were "logging" at the surface, lying quietly close together blowing now and then. Whales are often seen resting at the surface. As we approached, Cone (the closest whale with the white dorsal)"wheeze blew" as if to say... that's close enough. We kept our distance and drifted along with them for a while.
Cone tipped her tail towards us, rolling slightly to her left so a bit of her fluke rose out of the water. After drifting with them for about 10 minutes, they humped their backs and all slid under in unison.
Each trip on the boat had its own quality, this one was very quiet and peaceful... no one spoke much, everybody seemed to be soaking in languidness of the three whales.
HELPFUL HINT: If you click on the photograph it will take you to a larger size posted on Flickr. There are often some notes of explaination on the pictures in Flickr.
6/19/87 CONE AND DERECHA AGAIN
Even though it was pretty choppy, we went out again the next day and came upon Derecha and Cone in just about the same place we had left them; Nurse was not with them this time. Derecha's dorsal is closest, Cone's is tucked in close behind, just barely visible. The two females dove and came up in unison remaining so close their flippers must have brushed. It seemed really companionable.
The blue boat in the background is the deep sea fishing boat that belonged to our boss. He had arrived at Jeffrey's Ledge before us and helped us find these two.
There is a tiny brown bird in the lower right hand side of the picture, it is a wilson's storm petrel. It is a good sign to see lots of these little birds on the water because they seek the same feed as whales. (I suggest you follow the link back to the larger original photograph to see detail more clearly)
Cone's fluke is on the left. Derecha is just about to dive too..... get ready!
Ahhh Derecha for sure! Notice how different their flukes are. Derecha's is very dark and Cone's is very white.
Humpback whales are very blubbery compared to the stream-lined Finback whale and so when they want to make a deep dive they have to bring up their tails to counteract their bouyancy. A Finback would just slide down under the surface and be gone.
Here is Cone's fluke again, very white. Now this is a photo matchers dream shot if I do say so myself. I sent this picture to Allied Whale where someone "took it through" the catalogue (of 6,000 individual fluke shots!), trying to find a match. They found Cone very quickly and were able to tell me who she was and a little about her history. That is how I found out the identity of the whales I have been talking about.
"taillob", or slapped her fluke repeatedly on the water. Sometimes seasickness is the price you pay for the most interesting behavior!
1987 6-19 cone 2
Originally uploaded by yeimaya.
A LONG SPELL OF NO WHALES! TIME FOR A BRIEF WHALE BIOLOGY LESSON
We had gotten off to such an exciting start seeing these female humpacks for three days in a row that we were ready for a great summer. It rained for a week straight, and when we finally could go out again... not a humpback to be seen!
Somedays we would go out and there was NOTHING... Often I found myself describing what a humpback/finback would look and act like if we only saw one. We certainly were made aware that those extraordinary whale encounters come with either huge amounts of luck or perserverance. Most of the people on the boat were philosophical about it, others expected a Disney experience and got pretty frustrated. During those many days in July and early August when we went out and saw nothing, I talked a lot about whale biology and behavior, any bits of information I could think of to make the trip more interesting... so I'll do it here too just to give an authentic flavor to the story of that summer.
There are two main families of whales, one with teeth (odontocetes) and the other with baleen (mysticetes). They are pretty easy to tell apart.
Odontocetes have teeth for grabbing food and a single blowhole or nostril. The largest is the Sperm whale (50feet) but other members of this family include dolphins, pilot whales, narwhals, belugas, orcas etc. They eat fish, squid even other marine mammals.
Mysticetes have baleen for filtering food and have two blowholes. The largest is the Blue whale (100 feet) others are finbacks, humpbacks, minkes, right whales, gray whales etc. They eat some small schooling fish but mostly huge dense concentrations of tiny krill, sand lance or copepods.
Finally in mid- July we began to see some whales again:
Now and then we saw some Atlantic Whitesided dolphins.... usually in large groups. There were mothers with their tiny calves tucked in close besides them, mid-sized rambunctious ones that may have been the teenagers, and larger adults. Every once in a while small clusters would break off from the feeding groups and ride our bow. It looked like a great diversion for them, and certainly was for us!
86 7-11 AWD05
Originally uploaded by yeimaya.
Finbacks started coming into the area on a regular basis. Even though our encounters were usually brief, they were always breath taking. They are 70 feet long, very slender and super fast swimmers (25 knots, certainly faster than our boat). They are called the greyhounds of the sea for good reason, which makes observing them difficult and often frustrating because they could cover such distance under water that they could leave the area without us even knowing.
Allied Whale also holds the catalogue of individual finbacks. Unlike humpback which show distinctive flukes when they dive, finbacks rarely dive and so other distinguishing marks have to be used. Researchers found they could use the shape of their dorsal fins and the patterns behind their blowhole on the right sides.
Finbacks are one of the few asymetrically marked animals. They have a white right jaw and a dark left one. No one is certain why that is. There is some speculation that they turn onto their right side when they are feeding and this gives them the proper countershading to make them less visible to their prey. Like humpbacks, they feed on small schooling fish as well as krill and copepods and have baleen rather than teeth.
Sometimes we would see a Minke whale... the smaller cousin of the Finback. Minkes are 30-35 feet while Finbacks are 70-80 feet, but have the same streamlined bodies and speedy action. One way to tell a minke from a finback is: when a Minke comes to the surface, you can see the blowhole and dorsal fin at the same time. When a finback blows a lot of sleek muscular back slides by before the dorsal shows itself and by that time its blowhole has gone under the water.
We ended up calling them "stinky Minkes" because they were so frustrating to watch. Someone might spot one but by the time we got the boat turned around and we redirected everybodies attention... the were gone! That was OUR problem, they were going about their lives just as they were supposed to.
Right whales are extremely endangered so it was a great honor to see one. We were extremely careful not to approach, or disturb them. Twice that July we came upon a mother and her calf. We were impressed by how differently they moved ... she and her calf seemed so ponderous compared to the speedy finbacks and even the slower humpbacks. Right Whales are the slowest and most bouyant of baleen whales and they feed exclusively on tiny krill and copepods while humpbacks might eat some small fish.
FIRST SIGHTING OF FISSURE 8/26/87
After a long July with no Humpbacks, they finally began filtering into the Jeffrey's Ledge area by mid August. Just a few at first but more and more each day until by the end of August we would see several at a time. Many of them were mothers with their calves. The little tiny blip to the left of the larger dorsal in this picture is a calf .
On August 26th we were overwelmed by variety whales to watch. Three or four Minke's and at least three finbacks were zooming around, popping up unpredictably. Dolphins rode our bow and six humpbacks were within sight! Two of them were mother and calf pairs.
Suddenly we picked out our old friend Fissure from the previous year, tagging along with Sargent and her calf. (The picture above is of Sargent and her tiny calf). The three stayed very close together.
Fissure didn't seem the slightest bit interested in us, but seemed to focus his attention on the little calf: he is lying on his left side, the right side of his fluke sticking up in the air. He is close enough to the little calf that his nose is possibly touching its fluke. The calf's tiny dorsal is poking out of the water.
If you look really carefully (perhaps click on the link back to flickr), you can see the light green water caused by the white of his flipper and a big flat "foot print" from the upsweep of the mother's tail. I think she is just in front of her calf, but it is hard to tell.
That is one of the frustrations and fascinations of studying a marine animal... the majority of the important behaviors happen under water out of sight!
The mother and calf "fluked up" making a deep dive and we figured they would be down for a while. It seemed like a good time to leave them for we were even more sensitive about disturbing mothers and calves than adults.
Fissure followed close behind so, assuming the long encounter was over, we started to back away and head for home.
Suddenly the captain let out a yelp and took the boat out of gear. Fissure came up right next to us with a loud whoooosh of exhaled air. He was so close I couldn't get the camera to focus. It didn't help that I was shaking in surprise!
Now we seemed more interesting than the mother and calf. We could see them off in the distance, coming up and blowing once in a while. But Fissure stayed close to us. He dove and circled the boat just a few feet below the surface so we could see his whole body. His tail rose and fell leisurely, leaving "footprints" at the surface. His long white flippers glowing green through the water, worked as stabilizers, like wings of a gliding gull delicately changing pitch to maintain his course. When he reached the stern of the boat, he used one flipper like an oar to help him turn to continue his circle of the boat.
It was a very mellow encounter, not nearly as rambunctious as the previous summer. He seemed content to swim around us or lay close to the surface with his nose (rostrum) almost touch the boat. Finally it was time to go, and on the way home we looked through the log from 1986... sure enough, our first 1986 encounter with Fissure had also been at the end of August.
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