30
HUMPBACKS, 1 FIN WHALE, 1 MINKE WHALE, SCORES OF DOLPHINS,
THOUSANDS OF PELAGIC BIRDS
Click
on this thumbnail to see a map of our sightings
The early morning of our 7th trip
to the Great South Channel
(from Montauk) in
six years started with clear calm conditions and
unlimited visibility.We had heard reports of a many whales
near the BB
buoy and we headed there. Our first
pair of humpbackwhales
were sighted at 6:51 AM. Over the ensuing 12 hours, we were almost
constantly with new whales as we traveled north. Our
first day produced encounters with 6 cow/calf pairs (all
identified) and 11 other individuals (all but 3 identified).
Perhaps the most interesting encounter
was with a 9 year old female named Ganesh, who was
known to have her first calf this year. We saw
her, but with no calf. We found her in the midst of a
prolonged breaching and chin slapping bout. While she
was with us, she breach over 70 times during 40 minutes.
Finally, her calf showed up, and she stopped breaching and
the two of them left the area.
After 12 hours, we
anchored for the night, exhausted, yet excited and ready for
more the next day. Our birders were blown away by the
numbers and diversity of the birds we encountered, for
example, we saw over 4700 Greater Shearwaters alone, that
first day. Another incredible fact was that one of the
South Polar Skuas had an ID band on its leg. The bird
was later identified as one ringed
on 9.2.2005 by Markus
Markus,
Institute of Ecology at Friedrich Schiller University,
he said "...
it bred successfully in the last seasons.
Our investigated populations are at King-George Island /
Antarctica (62° 12’ S, 58° 58’ W)..." This
sighting is one of the first banded South Polar Skuas from
the coast of North America!!
On the following morning,
we were essentially awakened at 6:10 by our first whal, a
humpback named Lava. We also had our first fin
and minke whale, a short while later. We had to
leave the area by 9:00 AM, having sighted 5 additional
humpbacks (2 cow/calf pairs and a singleton).
