June 5, 2011

It was such a gorgeous day out on the ocean and we had great wildlife sightings too! Our trip started out with an eventful visit to Petit Manan Island, where we sighted many puffins, razorbills, common murrs, and terns. Andrew, the supervisor at the island, informed us that more terns had arrived during the evening and that overall, the puffin numbers seem to be doing well. A couple of the researchers were in the bird blinds, one of which was checking for banded puffins. Also, many of the passengers had excellent questions to ask of Andrew!


As we left Petit Manan we had a nice ride out to the whale feeding grounds and eventually after some searching we sighted a couple of minke whales. Then a large blow and back was seen in the distance. It was a finback whale! We ended up seeing two to three finbacks and several minke whales, one of which gave us nice close looks! There were many pods of harbor porpoise along with a large number of gray and harbor seals. The whales seemed a bit more spread out today and we taking long dives. With the water being so calm we could tell that there was food around, as many schools of fish started jumping out of the water.



Overall a great day and looking forward to what we see on the next trip! Everyday is a new adventure!


Photos: Walter Churchill