On our afternoon trip we came across several humpbacks! We saw a couple of them swimming by themselves and a couple in pair groups with one on the whales breaking off from one group to join another! We got some great looks at Alphorn traveling with another whale, but then broke off and joined up with Pipette, and Banyan. We then saw a whale doing some flipper slapping a little ways away and went to try and get some looks, but this whale seemed to be a little shy and would stop when we got close. As we kept waiting and hoping the whale would do some more flipper slapping we saw another whale in the distance do a tail breach. Then our flipper slapping whale came up close by and was joined by Pipette, Alphorn, and Banyan. The flipper slapping whale turned out to be a whale named I.T. Such a great afternoon on the water with so many whales!
~Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: Alphorn, Banyan, flipper slapping, I.T., Pipette

Photo by Barry McGovern WCNE

Our trips these past few days have been incredible! We have been able to find several feeding humpback whales. The whales seem to be quite hungry, as they should be. They haven't eaten since last fall when they left the feeding grounds up here in the North Atlantic. These whales fast through the winter when they are in their breeding and calving grounds. We have been seeing a lot of open mouth feeding, which is when the whale comes up with it's mouth wide open and we can actually see inside and the baleen plates hanging down. Humpbacks are a type of whale that don't have teeth but baleen plates to help them feed. Some of the Humpbacks that we were able to ID: Etch-a-Sketch, Measles and Pipette.

-Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist.

Labels: Etch-a-Sketch, feeding, humpbacks, Measles, Pipette