Pilot Whales Galore!

We had our hopes built up and then let down when we had two Finback whales run through the "Ballpark" a few days back. We had no luck with them one day, found them the next, and then we unfortunately lost them again.
So after a few days of not much luck we finally had some of the most fun whales yesterday Monday September 21st! Pilot Whales! We knew it was going to be a great trip because we found a Minke whale at Egg Rock (just 20 minutes into our whale watching trip!) We had great looks at Harbor Porpoise, Gray and Harbor Seals at Mount Desert Rock, plenty of Phaloropes and Puffins, and them we found the happiest little whales on Earth, the Pilot Whales!
We came across a pod of about 50 pilot whales, including very large males, plenty of females and even a very cute calf who loved showing off for the boat. If anyone ever wondered whether or not whales liked boats, this trip proved that they do! The baby was breaching close to the boat, spyhopping, tail lobbing and blowing bubbles underwater! Even the adults were having fun!
The adults were also blowing bubbles, rolling around on their backs and slapping their flippers on the surface of the water! You could even hear the clicks that these whales made! That almost never happens! It was quite an amazing trip and our naturalist Lauren (also one of our Research Assistants (RA)) did a great job narrating the trip. And our RA of the day Laura also took amazing pictures. For more of her photos of the day, please visit our flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhwhales
So there is still plenty to see out there in the ocean and we hope you can join us on one of our amazing trips!

Bye for now,
Naturalist Linda

Back up and Running!

We do apologize for not keeping up with the blog, but all us naturalists have been very busy now that fall has picked back up. But we do hope to stay on top of things this time! Now, we've all been very busy, but the whales have been a different story!

After a great and amazing August, we were hit by tropical storm Bill and by Danny and boy did they do a number on us! We suspect that they scattered all the food around and disrupted the foraging whales! So at the end of August and beginning of September, we experienced a lull in the whale sightings. We went days without seeing our wonderful Humpbacks and Finbacks, but we did see some amazing other creatures!

We saw Ocean Sunfish also known as Mola mola, their scientific name. We saw Pilot Whales for a number of days and even basking sharks! It was great seeing those creatures, but alas no large whales. But then we decided to go to the East! And we were pleasently surprised to seeing lots of Finback whales by Jonesport close to Canada!

We would like to thank all our passengers for being so patient on our l0ng trips to the East. They were long but well worth it! To see our recent photos from the Jonesport area, please visit our flickr site at www.flickr.com/photos/bhwhales Our wonderful research assistants have been great at updating the photo site, and now us naturalists are also stepping up to the plate!

Even though we've been checking out Jonesport pretty regularly, we did explore the Ballpark (an area we went to all the time early in the summer) and we were amazed when we found not one, but TWO FINBACK WHALES! However, we went back to that same sight yesterday 9/17/09 and found only one Minke whale. No finbacks. Hopefully they'll come back.

Either way we hope you will join us again or for the first time in our search for whales. They've all been excellent trips: beautiful weather, sunfish, basking sharks, bluefin tuna and great birds! Now all we need is for our whales to stick out the rest of the season with us! So pack up some patience, warm weather, a few snacks and a camera and join us for great trips!

Bye for now,
Naturalist Linda