Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island
Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island
Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island
Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island
Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island
Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island

Past CRESLI Whale Watch Sighting Reports

2013-2023

By: Arthur H. Kopelman, Ph.D.


Past CRESLI Whale Watch Sighting Reports

CRESLI/Viking Fleet Whale Watch Sightings 2013-2023


CRESLI 2023 Whale Watch Naturalist Blog

Sunday July 2, 2023

2 species of dolphins and tons of pelagic birds! years

The Viking Fleet and CRESLI began our 28th consecutive season of whale watching trips on a windy and bouncy day. We had reports of whales and dolphins in the area. Shortly after passing Montauk Light we found our first group of about 60 bottlenose dolphins and stayed with them for a while. We headed further east to look for whales, then south, then west, then north. We found a small group of short-beaked common dolphins that briefly rode our bow wake. Eventually we found another 60 bottlenose traveling at incredible speed past us heading to where we’d soon tons of bait at the thermocline. Hundreds of shearwaters and storm petrels close to Montauk. What a way to start!!

  • 120 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 10 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 82 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 490 Great shearwaters
  • 2 Manx shearwaters
  • 2 Sooty shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Long trip - but we found our 1st baleen whale!

Our second whale watch of the 2023 season is in the books! Before leaving the dock, passengers were treated to sightings of two gray seals feeding in the harbor. Once departed, we swapped out the heat of land in exchange for cool, offshore breezes as we searched for more marine mammals. Our first encounter was with several small groups of inshore bottlenose dolphins, including a few mother/calf pairs. We watched as the dolphins fed, chasing their prey in circular patterns and at one point, nearly surrounding our vessel. After spending time with them, we went off in search of larger cetaceans, stopping a few times along the way to observe additional small groups of bottlenose dolphins. While encountering another mom/calf dolphin pair, a blow was spotted far off in the distance. We traveled toward the area, coming upon a juvenile humpback whale which was searching for and/or feeding on bait detected along the bottom. After enjoying a few surface intervals and dives, it was time to return to port, accompanied by numerous shearwaters and an additional dolphin sighting along the way. We got back late, but nobody complained!
We're just getting started! We sail every Sunday and Wednesday this summer. Book your trip with us today.

  • 2 gray seals
  • 80-100 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 humpback whale
  • ~80 Cory's shearwaters
  • 4 Manx shearwaters
  • ~170 Great shearwaters
  • 2 possible Sooty shearwaters
  • 15 Wilson storm petrels

 

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Fourth cetacean species in only three trips!

Today’s whale watch was an exercise in patience. Reports of bottlenose dolphins brought us southwest in search of these dynamic cetaceans. Despite abundant prey just below the surface for much of our transit, no dolphins were found. We passed through numerous patches of sargassum, hoping to spot a turtle or two, but no turtles were found. Occasional sightings of Great shearwaters entertained us while searching for life at the surface. We headed into deeper water, keeping dry from the soaking rains pounding the mainland. At last, a blow and fin were spotted and investigated, revealing a fin whale, our fourth cetacean species in only our third trip of the season! The fin whale appeared to be feeding, spending short intervals underwater and surfacing around our vessel. While watching this whale, a second whale appeared, presumably a second, smaller fin whale, although only brief glimpses were granted. Unfortunately, already running late, we needed to transit back to the dock and leave these two behind. Passengers were happy to have spent time with the whales, a first experience for many on board! Every trip is different and we never know what we will see (or when) and this trip was a perfect example of that.

We sail every Sunday and Wednesday through early September. Book your trip with us today!

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

  • 2 Fin whales
  • 140-180 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Cory’s shearwater
  • 2 Sooty shearwaters
  • 5-8 Wilson storm petrels

Wednesday, July 19, 2023 

Expectations Exceeded!

After Wednesday’s incredible encounters and a weather-cancelled trip on Sunday, we headed offshore with high hopes that the whales observed last week would still be around for today’s cruise. That plan was quickly interrupted by two humpbacks appearing halfway into our transit, feeding and moving closely in association with one another. Upon further observation, we were thrilled to find a familiar whale within the pair: Hasselback! Hasselback is a whale that we first encountered as a calf (to Scylla) in 2016 in the Great South Channel. In 2018, the then-unnamed humpback was observed off Montauk again before appearing in 2021 with horrific propeller-blade scarring from a boat strike. Despite his injury, Hasselback was sighted again in 2022 feeding and doing well. A few weeks ago, CRESLI had the distinct honor of announcing his Gulf of Maine Humpback Catalogue name (maintained by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies) to the public. As we spent time with the duo, several pods of inshore bottlenose dolphins appeared, also feeding on the abundant prey beneath the surface. A third humpback was spotted and, after everyone onboard got excellent views of the dolphins, we eventually sailed off into deeper water. There, we encountered three more humpbacks, including a mother and calf pair, our first of the season! Traveling onward a bit more, we encountered six more humpbacks, all cooperatively feeding and straining the prey through their baleen at the surface. We spent some time with them before heading home, thrilled from being immersed in cetaceans throughout the cruise.

  • 3 Atlantic gray seals
  • 200 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 14 humpback whales (including a cow/calf pair)
  • 45 Great shearwaters
  • 20 Cory's shearwaters
  • 2 Manx shearwaters
  • 5 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • 1 Parasitic jaeger

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Dolphins, humpback whale, sharks, and more!

Sunday’s trip began with a bang! A gray seal rolled acrobatically in the water alongside our vessel as we sailed out of port. Then, only five minutes from the lighthouse, a breach was spotted by one of our sharp-eyed volunteers. We quickly turned course to find a juvenile humpback whale repeatedly breaching and pec-slapping (slapping its long, pectoral flippers on the surface of the water). We enjoyed views of the young whale, which began taking shallow (non-fluking) dives before diving deep enough to expose its tail flukes out of the water, an important tool used to identify the individual. From there, we moved offshore in search of the larger individuals encountered on our last trip. Unfortunately, the whales had moved on from that spot so we continued searching, stumbling upon two sharks (of unknown species), and eventually spotting a small pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins. Some of the dolphins were leaping out of the water and appeared to be feeding, spending time under the water in a tight group. We steamed home, enjoying beautiful views of the cliffs, diving terns and warm, summer breezes.

Our trips remain 100% successful in finding cetaceans this season. Join us on our next trip!

  • 1 Atlantic gray seal
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 16-20 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 40-50 Great shearwaters
  • 8-10 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 2 sharks (species unknown)

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

An epic trip unlike any in a decade!

We headed out to sea to escape the heat. We had reports of dolphins and whales and headed SE and soon found a group of 50-60 inshore bottlenose dolphins, chasing their prey over an area of about 1 square nautical mile. After the dolphins we headed south to no avail.  We then traveled east, then north and on our way we saw blows! We never gave up and we found 5 fin whales actively feeding! They were circle feeding, taking 3-5 minute dives to feed on the dense bait we were seen at the surface (to 20 feet) and on the bottom (100 feet). There appeared to be a mom/calf pair in this group of 5.  The adults were easily 60-70' long and probably weighed 120-140,000 lbs.

We have not seen 5 fin whales swimming together and feeding this actively in a decade. We got back the dock late, but nobody complained!

  • 50-60 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 5 fin whales (finback whales)
  • 127 Great shearwaters
  • 7 Cory's shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Just gets better and better! 300-400 Bottlenose dolphins and 5 humpback whales

On a comfortable day, with unlimited visibility, we were ready to find lots of cetaceans , and that we did. We had reports of dolphins “everywhere,” and whales where we’d seen them on our last, as well as closer to shore. Are assumption that the nearshore whales were juvenile humpbacks was correct. These juvenile humpback whales and dolphins were searching for and feeding on the abundant patches of Atlantic menhaden (AKA bunker). We watched as the whales fed via subsurface lunges. These were small humpbacks, probably no larger than 24 feet. Our first 4 humpbacks undertook no “surface” activity, but our 5th humpback was repeatedly flipper-slapping and surfacing lunging,.  Beautiful to watch.  We’re already looking forward to Wednesday’s trip!!  Join us.

A reminder to all – you will need cash to purchase food and drinks onboard, and to enter the 50/50 raffle, should you wish.

  • 300-400 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 5 humpback whales
  • 200 Great shearwaters
  • 10 Cory’s shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work.

Here's an a link to install this trip's photos as an App on your phonee

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Our streak continues!

With temperatures in the 70’s, calm seas, and absolutely unlimited visibility, we could not have asked for better conditions to search for cetaceans on our ninth trip of the season. Reports of whales brought us west of Block Island where spouts were immediately spotted. The first belonged to two humpback whales, surfacing, swimming, and diving in near unison as they fed on the abundant bait throughout the water column. Very soon after, a large fin (finback) whale was also observed accompanied by hundreds of short-beaked common dolphins. We stayed with the whales and dolphins for nearly two hours, getting great views of the spectacle as dolphins surrounded our vessel and the two humpbacks did a “swim-by” popping up on two separate occasions right next to our vessel, which sat safely out of gear. The presence of the fin whale, approximately 70 feet in length, was routinely announced by common dolphins which would pop up just moments before and ahead of the whale, riding its ‘bow’ wake as it surfaced. A minke whale was also spotted on several occasions and everyone had excellent views of the tiny, but tough Wilson storm petrels which numbered 100 or more. A few passengers were even lucky enough to get quick glimpses of two sea turtles (of unknown species) which were also (very briefly) encountered. Our trips remain 100% successful in finding cetaceans this season. Join us as we head out again this Sunday in search of more! Please remember to bring cash to purchase drinks and food from the galley and for our 50/50 raffle, if you wish to participate.

  • 2 sea turtles
  • 2 humpback whales
  • 1 fin (finback) whale (an individual not seen since 7/31/2010 - almost 13 years to the day), perhaps another as wrll
  • 1 minke whale
  • 100-120 Wilson storm petrels
  • 15-20 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 30-50 Great shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Patience and persistence pay off!

Our tenth trip of the season had us worker harder than usual to find cetaceans, but as with our other nine trips, we succeeded! We first headed south of Montauk following up on reports of whales, but instead of whales, we found several small pods of inshore bottlenose dolphins, collectively totaling 120-140 individuals. The dolphins were feeding and moving in tight circles around our vessel, in some cases charging towards an area and actively tail-slapping the water. Passengers had great views of the dolphins, which literally surrounded our vessel, and even heard vocalizations when they passed near the bow. We spent time observing their feeding strategies and tight-knit social structure, and even spotted a few mom/calf pairs swimming closely together. As wonderful as the encounter was, we moved on in search of larger cetaceans. At first, our only encounter was with a deadly killer; a mylar balloon floating at the surface. With the potential of being ingested by marine life mistaking it for food, we maneuvered the vessel to collect the balloon and remove the harm. This good karma may have played a role in what happened next; soon after, small tuna were seen breaking the surface and a blow was spotted in the distance. The whale was far off, but seemed to be humpback whale based on our initial observations. While waiting for the whale to surface, we encountered a fin whale approximately 75 feet in length. This whale turned out to be the same individual encountered on Wednesday’s trip (as identified by distinct notches on her dorsal fin). CRESLI knows this whale because, prior to these recent observations, she was last encountered in 2010, accompanied by a calf, not far from this location. We removed another mylar balloon and discovered the humpback whale while waiting for the fin whale to surface. Both whales were feeding on bait detected 50 feet below the surface in 170 feet of water, leading to long down times. We returned to port later than normal accompanied by a beautiful summer sunset heralding the end of a wonderful day.

  • 120-140 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 1 fin whale
  • Leaping tuna (small)
  • 30 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • 20-30 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 11 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Parasitic jaeger
  • 1 Glaucous gull

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work.

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Good things come to those who wait!

After a morning of wicked and lingering thunderstorms, the Viking Starship set sail under blue skies and calm seas for its 11th whale watch of our season. We quickly found a pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins, made up of between 30-40 individuals all actively feeding on bait near the surface. We enjoyed views of the dolphins before heading off to find larger cetaceans. Our search led us far offshore into waters where whales had been previously seen. Here, we searched in vain, before, at last, spotting a blow far off in the distance. The whale, observed through binoculars, was a fin whale and, in 170 feet of water, was presumably feeding on abundant bait 100 feet down. This led to extremely long down times and limited encounters. Unfortunately, we had to begin our transit back so we left this whale but continued looking. As the sun began to set on the day and our time at sea, we suddenly found ourselves in the presence of 6-8 (possibly more) humpback whales, dozens of Wilson’s storm petrels and Great Shearwaters, all feeding on plentiful bait at the surface. Upon our approach, one of the humpbacks breached clearly out of the water as if to articulate the excitement of passengers onboard. We then found ourselves in the middle of the action; safely out of gear as the whales popped up in every direction around the vessel. There may have been as many as 10-14 individuals, but it was difficult to look beyond those surrounding our vessel to verify. We spent as much time as we could with these magnificent animals before, once again, needing to return home. As we left, one of the whales began lobtailing (raising and slapping its tail out of/onto the water), as if to bid us farewell. Passengers at the back of the vessels counted 27 slaps before stopping. It was a great and fruitful end to our adventure!
We will be returning to this area on Wednesday. Want to join us?

  • 30-40 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 finback whale
  • 14 humpback whales
  • 1 sea turtle (loggerhead or green)
  • 80-100 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • 60-80 Great shearwaters
  • 20-30 Cory’s shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work.

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Extraordinary is an Understatement!

There are not enough superlatives to describe yesterday’s incredible encounters! For our 12th trip of the season, we headed off to search for whales a few miles off Block Island where we saw them on our previous voyage. The transit was marked by large patches of pelagic birds: hundreds of Cory’s and Great shearwaters and Wilson’s storm petrels, some noticeably feeding at the surface, but no cetaceans were among them. That was until we spotted multiple blows belonging to, at first, 5-6 humpbacks, including two associated pairs feeding in rich tuna fishing grounds. To our surprise, two fin whales joined in, along with a minke whale, marking three cetacean species within a quarter mile of each other. We watched these whales for a while, before heading on towards additional blows, belong to two more humpbacks, and enjoying great views of these and the fin whales which approached close to our vessel. Just when we thought it could not get any better, we spotted a tremendous number of birds and bubbles ahead of us, followed by 4-5 humpbacks surfacing with mouths wide open, straining the prey through their baleen. This phenomenon was repeated by a group of three additional humpbacks nearby, along with many others in the near vicinity tail-throwing and chin breaching. The actual number of individuals remains to be determined through photographic analysis but preliminary estimates suggest that we encountered at least twenty humpbacks, possibly four fin whales, and 1 minke. A group of 40-60 short-beaked common dolphins also arrived along with a gray seal spotted in the harbor both before and after our cruise for the icing on the cake. It was an unbelievably amazing day on the Viking Starship and with only six trips remaining, you won’t want to miss your opportunity to join us during our incredible 2023 season!

  • 20-28 humpback whales
  • 3-4 fin whales
  • 1 minke whale
  • 40-60 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 1 gray seal
  • 350-500 great shearwaters
  • 80-120 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 120-180 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • Undetermined number of Pomarine jaegers
  • 120-180 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • Undetermined number of Pomarine jaegers

PHOTOS SOON
 

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Extraordinary is an Understatement!

There are not enough superlatives to describe yesterday’s incredible encounters! For our 12th trip of the season, we headed off to search for whales a few miles off Block Island where we saw them on our previous voyage. The transit was marked by large patches of pelagic birds: hundreds of Cory’s and Great shearwaters and Wilson’s storm petrels, some noticeably feeding at the surface, but no cetaceans were among them. That was until we spotted multiple blows belonging to, at first, 5-6 humpbacks, including two associated pairs feeding in rich tuna fishing grounds. To our surprise, two fin whales joined in, along with a minke whale, marking three cetacean species within a quarter mile of each other. We watched these whales for a while, before heading on towards additional blows, belong to two more humpbacks, and enjoying great views of these and the fin whales which approached close to our vessel. Just when we thought it could not get any better, we spotted a tremendous number of birds and bubbles ahead of us, followed by 4-5 humpbacks surfacing with mouths wide open, straining the prey through their baleen. This phenomenon was repeated by a group of three additional humpbacks nearby, along with many others in the near vicinity tail-throwing and chin breaching. The actual number of individuals remains to be determined through photographic analysis but preliminary estimates suggest that we encountered at least twenty humpbacks, possibly four fin whales, and 1 minke. A group of 40-60 short-beaked common dolphins also arrived along with a gray seal spotted in the harbor both before and after our cruise for the icing on the cake. It was an unbelievably amazing day on the Viking Starship and with only six trips remaining, you won’t want to miss your opportunity to join us during our incredible 2023 season!

  • 20-28 humpback whales
  • 3-4 fin whales
  • 1 minke whale
  • 40-60 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 1 gray seal
  • 350-500 great shearwaters
  • 80-120 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 120-180 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • Undetermined number of Pomarine jaegers
  • 120-180 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • Undetermined number of Pomarine jaegers

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Check this one off your bucket list!

Passengers aboard yesterday’s whale watch excursion experienced the trip of a lifetime! It all began with a breaching humpback, which upon further investigation, turned out to be not one, but two whales! The possible mom and calf pair breached more than a dozen times, performing acrobatic twirls and twisting breaches directly ahead of our vessel. In the vicinity were blows from at least 7-8 other whales, but the boat sat safely out of gear watching the display until the pair (and we) moved on. We immediately encountered a handful of other humpback whales, at least two fin whales, and at least one minke whale. The animals were moving quickly completing shallow, subsurface dives to feed on the bait detected just below the surface. Then things got really interesting; humpbacks began popping up on all sides of the vessel straining prey through their baleen and flipper (pec) slapping. More blows spouted off in the distance while fin and minke whales popped up next to us affording spectacular views. Then, a pod of 40-60 short-beaked common dolphins came charging in to join the feast. Hundreds of shearwaters and storm petrels completed the guest list. There were cetaceans in close proximity everywhere you looked. More humpbacks appeared within a cloud of bubbles slowly moving along the surface (a technique known as dragging) to strain the engulfed water out through their baleen and retain their prey. A nearby breach surprised passengers at the stern and we all had the fortunate problem of not knowing where to look as the spectacle surrounded the Viking Starship entirely. Altogether, we encountered 20-26 humpbacks, 4-6 fin whales and 3-5 minke whales, with many others in the surrounding waters.

We have only five trips remaining in our incredible season. Book your trip with us today! Please remember to bring cash to purchase food in our galley and our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to participate. We hope to see you soon!

  • 20-26 humpback whales
  • 4-6 fin (finback) whales
  • 3-5 minke whales
  • 160-220 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 260-320 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty shearwater
  • 120-160 Wilson’s storm petrels

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Another multi-species day!

It was a beautiful day on the water, with unlimited visibility, and calm seas.  We had reports of dolphins and whales near Montauk and found both within a short time after passing Montauk Point Lighthouse. Groups of Inshore bottlenose dolphins were spread out around us, perhaps a total of 45 individuals were busy chasing prey and feeding. In a short while we moved a bit further away and found a humpback whale, MTK.2022.09.04-03, who we'd also seen on July 19, 2023, 1 nautical mile further south.
After watching these cetaceans for a while, we decided to hear eastward towards where we'd been seeing 20-30 whales for about 2 weeks.  To our disappointment, the prey and the whales were gone, they'd travelled well to the east, beyond our range.  We headed back and off in the distance saw a humpback breach several times, and as we approached , we realized that this was the same whale we'd left a few hours earlier. Were we elated, and this whale was joined by about 60 inshore bottlenose, chasing surface prey with even more activity than earlier. We return ed to the dock with lots of happy passengers and crew.

We have only a few trips remaining in our incredible season. Book your trip with us today! Please remember to bring cash to purchase food in our galley and our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to participate. We hope to see you soon!

  • 105 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 Humpback whale
  • 84 Cory's shearwaters
  • 47 Great shearwaters
  • 20 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 1 Parasitic jaeger
  • 5 red-necked phalaropes

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, August 27, 2023

We never stopped looking and found them again! 

On a gorgeous day with excellent visibility, we headed out in search of cetaceans. We had reports of whales and dolphins near  the lighthouse and we found them quickly, within 3 nautical miles. The humpback we saw was one we'd seen in late July, and there were about 50 inshore common dolphins swimming around us as well.  We had reports of other whales to the east, where we'd been seeing them for a few weeks. Alas, they were gone. We headed back to where we'd seen our first whale, and found it again because it breached off in the distance. As we approached, we began to see other humpback blows. In fact, we found two associated pairs of humpbacks in addition to our first whale of the trip. We also found our typical array of Cory's and Great shearwaters, as well as Wilson's storm petrels. We got back to the dock about 20 minutes late, but the delay was well worth it.

  • 5 Humpback whales
  • 50 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 160 Cory's shearwaters
  • 57 Great shearwaters
  • 13 Wilson's storm petrels
  • ~200 Common terns (in one area about ~5 nm out)

Book your trip with us today! Please remember to bring cash to purchase food from the galley and our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to participate. We hope to see you soon!

Photos to view and/or purchase images, prints, artwork to help support our work

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Bookended by dolphins and scintillated by a sunset!

Although passengers boarded the Viking Starship in the rain yesterday, the sun came out as soon as we set sail and stayed dry for the remainder of the trip. We began, almost immediately, with a group of inshore bottlenose dolphins, which were feeding on small patches of prey beneath the surface, before heading off in search of whales to our southwest. We searched in vain for a while, before coming upon an unusually small and inquisitive pod of short-beaked common dolphins which charged toward the vessel and remained with us for several minutes darting around and under the bow, affording great, up-close views of themselves. We eventually left these enigmatic animals to continue our search, finally coming upon a small humpback whale. The whale was spending time feeding just under the surface, completing shallow non-fluking dives to reach the bait detected just below the surface. We spent time with the young whale that eventually, revealed its somewhat hazy pigmented flukes on a deeper, high fluking dive at the end of our time together. As we traveled back to port, we were surprised by another group of bottlenose dolphins, which surfed and leaped in the accompanying swells. The dolphins, clearly having fun, nearly surrounded and played around the vessel. We continued home, coming upon additional small groups of bottlenose dolphins, and enjoying a spectacular summer sunset as we headed into port. Days like this are not meant to last, and only four trips remain in our season. We hope you can join us before it ends. iRemember to bring cash to purchase food in our galley and to participate in our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to.

  • 1 young humpback whale
  • 80-100 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 3-5 Short-beaked common dolphins
  • 60-80 Great shearwaters
  • 20-30 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 30-40 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • 1 Manx shearwater

Photos to view and/or purchase images, prints, artwork to help support our work

Sunday, September 3, 2023

Summer is still sizzling!

While Labor Day weekend traditionally marks a time to celebrate the unofficial end of summer, the CRESLI and Viking Fleet team was hard at work finding whales in the waters off Montauk. Reports of whales and dolphins had us searching an area to our east before heading west along the shoreline. Despite whales being seen earlier, the waters were now barren with only occasional patches of resting seabirds, bellies full from previous feedings. We briefly encountered a very small group of inshore bottlenose dolphins, which did not stick around for better views, unfortunately. All was not lost, however, as we soon found a humpback whale that we’d seen a week earlier, NYC0008, feeding on bait detected just below the surface. Interestingly, NYC0008 was first seen 10 years ago by our colleagues at Gotham Whale. NYC0008 alternated between periods of sub-surface (shallow) diving and logging (resting), often moving closely to our vessel which was safely out of gear. Eventually, it was time to head back towards the harbor, but the whales in the area had other plans. On our transit home, we encountered 4-5 additional humpbacks, two of which seemingly ‘bookended’ us, appearing left and right of our vessel and affording nice views as they alternatingly surfaced and dove ahead of us. While waiting for one of the two whales to surface, we observed blows far off in the distance belonging to the other 2 or 3 individuals. Then – what a treat! One of the whales appeared off our stern lob-tailing (tail slapping). With the sun soon setting and summer’s haze filling the sky, it was a beautiful end to our holiday weekend trip. Don’t be fooled: summer doesn’t end for a few more weeks and CRESLI has three trips remaining! Book today before the season ends for good.

Be sure to bring cash to purchase food in our galley and to participate in our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to do so.

  • 5-6 humpback whales
  • 2-6 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 20-24 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 40-60 Great shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase images, prints, artwork to help support our work

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Oh, what a trip! 3 species of cetaceans!

We didn't need patience on this trip, we found whales almost right away. We left the heat and headed out to sea. A short while after passing Montauk Light, we encountered our first of 15 whales. The 50 of us on board were treated to views of humpback whales, finback whales, and inshore bottlenose dolphins right away. We had one humpback breach and flipper slap, another throwing its tail repeatedly, and so much more. The fin whales (mom/calf pair) left early, and the rest stayed to feed on the abundant prey just below the surface. The dolphins stayed until a large humpback trumpeted. A humpback trumpet blow is often an agonistic display, perhaps aimed at the dolphins.  They took the message and left. We left as well only to find more humpbacks wherever we went. Unlike other trips, we were generally in sight of the Montauk Point Lighthouse. We stayed with one humpback for a while because we thought its left pectoral flipper was injured.  Photos and videos were sent to Dr. Jooke Robbins at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (https://coastalstudies.org/). Her initial response was that the behavior we saw was not necessarily due to injury.

We continued to find whales and dolphins until it was time to return to the dock. Book today before the season ends for good. Be sure to bring cash to purchase food in our galley and to participate in our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to do so.

  • 8-12 humpback whales 
  • 2 finback whale
  • ~150 inshore bottlenose
  • 1 Wilson's storm petrels
  • ~200 Great shearwaters
  • ~70 Cory's shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase images, prints, artwork to help support our work

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Another amazing 3 species trip, with a sideshow of amazing weather front views.

Our streak of consecutive cetacean sightings continues. We headed out to escape the extreme heat  and to find whales. On our way west, we got to see spectacular cloud formations to our south. We eventually entered an area where we hit a "wall of wind" as well as light rain and a 10-15 degree drop in air temperature. We were no more than 0.5 miles from shore and we all put on sweatshirts and/or raincoats. Shortly thereafter we found our first pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins. Later we found 2 juvenile humpback whales, then a minke whale, and then more pods of inshore bottlenose dolphins. All the while we were watching thousands of gulls and shearwaters raising a ruckus and feeding in the same shallow area where we found the whales. Make sure to view and listen to the videos posted at https://drartiek-cresli.smugmug.com/CRESLI-2023-Whale-Watches/2023-09-10-Montauk-Whale-Watch.

Book today before the season ends for good on 9/17/2023 (weather permitting). Be sure to bring cash to purchase food in our galley and to participate in our 50/50 raffle, should you wish to do so.

  • 2 humpback whales
  • 1 minke whale
  • 50 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • ~100 Cory's shearwaters
  • ~12 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty shearwater (seen and photographed by a passenger)
  • 1 Wilson's storm petrel
  • Thousands of blackback, herring, and ring-billed gulls

Photos to view and/or purchase images, prints, artwork to help support our work

Sunday, September 17, 2023

The End of an Amazing Season

To be honest, we weren’t sure what to expect on our final whale watch of the season. Although, whales and dolphins remain in the area, Hurricane Lee which passed far to our northeast, whipped up very high seas from Friday night into Saturday, and although conditions calmed for us to sail, we never know what we might find after a storm of such impact moves through. Despite this, spirits were high as we searched an area where two whales had been spotted earlier aboard a Viking fishing vessel. Unfortunately, no whales were found, nor were the dolphins that had also been eyed that morning near the jetty from the same vessel. We saw a few Cory’s shearwaters and patches of diving terns as we sailed east of Block Island, an area where we have found many cetaceans on previous trips. This time, however, the area was barren. For a couple of hours, only a few sporadic gulls could be seen and little bait was detected, very unusual for such a typically productive area. The wind picked up as we sailed westward making for choppier seas, but visibility was unlimited and we continued searching. Then, a blow was spotted by the naturalist and investigated. It belonged to a small humpback whale, which was moving below the surface and completing shallow non-fluking dives, likely to feed on (and/or search for) the very limited bait that was detected at the top of the water column. We spent a good amount of time with the whale which eventually popped up closer to the vessel and finally dove deep enough to raise its magnificent flukes out of the water for all to see (and for CRESLI to obtain photographs sufficient to identify the individual). We continued searching on our transit home, as the summer sun set on our trip and our 2023 season. The storm may have made conditions unfavorable for finding whales, but our dedicated team succeeded one last time to make this another perfect season for finding cetaceans (our second in a row). 
We wish to thank everybody who participated in a whale watch with us and hope to see new and familiar faces next season! Thank you for your support.

  • 1 humpback whale
  • 3 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 3 shearwaters of unknown species

Photos to view and/or purchase images, prints, artwork to help support our work

 

CRESLI 2022 Whale Watch Naturalist Blog

Sunday July 3, 2022

One of the best trips in 10 years

The Viking Fleet and CRESLI began our 27th consecutive season of whale watching trips with amazing encounters with 8 fin whales, 1 humpback (back for its 3rd time in the past 4 years), 2 groups of about 30 short-beaked common dolphins, and a large and diverse array of pelagic birds. The whales, dolphins, and birds were feeding on dense prey patches at 125-150 feet down. What a way to start!!

  • 8 finback whales
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 60 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 15 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 70 Great shearwaters
  • 10 Cory's shearwaters
  • 5 Sooty shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Another excellent day on the Viking Starship.

We started off with repoprts of dolphins, and we did find them, and kept finding them over the course of our trip, approximately 300 in total, including some newborn calves. We also found a loggerhead sea turtle and had brief encounter with a minke whale

 

  • 300 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 Minke whale
  • 1 Loggerhead sea turtle
  • 60 Great shearwaters
  • 15 Cory's shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty shearwater

 

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

An excellent day on the water with 120 short-beaked common dolphins and loads of pelagic birds

It was a beautiful afternoon on the Viking Starship. We had reports of whales nearshore and searched without success, we headed offshore and while we encountered pelagic birds, Portuguese Man-o-Wars, and too many balloons. It wasn't until we got back to the area we'd searched last Wednesday and found about 120 short-beaked common dolphins and hundreds of  shearwaters, a handful of Wilson's storm petrels, and an immature Northern gannet. The dolphins, came over and swam alongside, we were barely moving and had amazing views.

  • 120 Short-beaked common dolphins
  • 300 Great shearwaters
  • 25 Cory's shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty shearwater
  • 1 Immature northern gannet
  • 2 Wilson’s storm petrels
  • 6 phalaropes (unable to determine species)

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 17, 2022

This was one of our best local whale watch trips of the past 10 years!!

There aren’t enough superlatives to describe the trip. Suffice it to say that for most, it was the trip of a lifetime! We were surrounded by whales for a radius of several miles and we often saw the classic “picket fence” of whales blows that we would see on our offshore trips to the Great South Channel. Let’s let the number do the “talking.”

  • 12 humpback whales
  • 4 finback whales
  • 2 minke whales
  • 400 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 1475  Great Shearwater (including a flock of 550)
  • 150 Cory's/Great Shearwater (“Based on what we saw they were most likely Great..”...)
  • 63 Cory’s Shearwater
  • 6 Sooty Shearwater
  • 4 Manx Shearwater
  • 323 Wilson’s Storm Petrel
    • Pelagic bird counts are courtesy of Steve Glover and are posted on e-bird

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, July 22, 2022

Another multispecies day!

No better way to beat the heat than with a whale watch! Comfortable breezes at sea were joined by dozens of small pods of short-beaked common dolphins throughout the voyage (200-250 total), including several mother/calf pairs and juveniles. Passengers listening closely at the bow could hear their clicks and whistles as the dolphins swam alongside the vessel. A mako shark sighting preceded that of a hammerhead to the delight of those aboard. One minke whale with a fishy-smelling exhalation gave new meaning to the term "stinky minke" (normally referring to their lack of a visible spray/blow and subsequent difficulty in spotting) as it surfaced close by. Two more minkes and a pair of finback whales were also observed. Pelagic bird sightings included (approximately) 120 Great Shearwaters, 40-50 Cory's Shearwaters, 4 Manx Shearwaters, 1 immature Northern Gannet, and 120-150 Wilson's Storm Petrels, half of which occurred in one large, beautiful flock. Escape the heat with us this Sunday as we sail along cool waters and explore more of this amazing coastal ecosystem

  • 2 Finback whales 
  • 3 Minke whales
  • 200-250 Short-beaked common dolphins
  • 1 Hammerhead shark
  • 1 Mako shark
  • ~120 Great Shearwaters
  • 40-50 Cory's Shearwaters
  • 4 Manx Shearwaters
  • 1 immature Northern Gannet
  • ~120-150 Wilson's Storm Petrels

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Dolphins, pelagic birds, sharks, and a heartbreaking sight: a very ill humpback whale

It's a heat wave, but you can keep the heat and I'll take the wave. There are few better ways to beat the heat than with a whale watch! The high heat and humidity on land gave way to cool offshore breezes. We were treated to early views of pelagic shearwaters, which continued throughout the trip. The waters were choppy, so we decided to change direction to minimize wind and maximize sightings. As if on cue, we immediately stumbled upon a hammerhead drifting next to our vessel. Shortly after, a small group of short-beaked common dolphins spent time near our bow before we headed off in search of larger residents. Although the wind quickly dissipates the blow from whales, a spout was sighted and investigated. Upon arrival, we found a humpback whale very different from ones typically sighted. This individual was reddish/brown in appearance and was drifting slowly at and just beneath the surface. Upon further inspection using zoomed-in photographs taken of the individual, the humpback appears to be infested with cyamids, tiny crustaceans found only on the bodies of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). Since this is an indication of distress, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) was immediately notified. AMCS reported the whale and its location to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency responsible for protecting whales under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Although humpback whales in the Northwest Atlantic are no longer considered endangered thanks to decades of conservation efforts, they are subject to entanglement with fishing line and gear which can severely weaken and/or drown the individual. NOAA and AMCS will continue to monitor this situation. As we returned home, a small group of bottlenose dolphins were spotted close to shore, wrapping up another successful trip. We sail every Wed and Sun until Labor Day; book your trip today!

  • 60-80 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Cory's shearwater
  • 1 hammerhead (likely a smooth hammerhead)
  • 4-6 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 3 bottlenose dolphins

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

It just keeps getting better and better! 5 species of cetaceans and 6 species of pelagic girds on this trip

Twenty minutes from the Lighthouse and about 4 miles away we found 80-100 inshore bottlenose dolphins chasing bait at the surface and diving to 75 feet for bait at the sea floor. We headed on our way and found our first whales about an hour later.  We saw 7 different humpback whales blow at the same time! WOW! It gets better – there were two mom/calf humpback pairs including Rune and her 2022 calf. No other humpback researchers knew that she had a calf until we found with her! We have yet to ID the 2nd mom.  The humpbacks were breaching, bubble feeding, open mouth feeding, flipper slapping! WOW! We also had at least 4 finback whales – 2 mom/calf pairs. Oh, let’s not forget about 60 short-beaked common dolphins. Another spectacular trip and probably the best yet.

  • 7 humpbacks whales
  • 4 finback whales
  • 2 minke whales
  • 100 inshore bottlenose
  • 60 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 380 Great shearwaters
  • 120 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 8 Sooty shearwaters
  • 12 Manx shearwaters
  • 1 dark phase Parasitic jaeger
  • 2 red phalaropes

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, July 31, 2022

An absolutely majestic day aboard the Viking Starship today. 

We set sail under clear skies, calm seas, and unlimited visibility. An encounter with a hammerhead shark commenced our adventure, staying near (and long) enough at the surface for all to get a good look. Soon after, a small group of inshore bottlenose dolphins were spotted and enjoyed. As we searched for whales, several large pods of short-beaked common dolphins charged toward and surrounded the boat. A nursery made up of a dozen mother/calf pairs accompanied the large group which swam near, around, and beneath our vessel. A second hammerhead shark was spotted close by while a blow belonging to a humpback whale was observed in the distance. The whale began a series of tail slaps revealing the unique ‘snow white’ undersides of its flukes, which can be used to identify the individual. No sooner than we decide to move on in search of other cetaceans does the whale breach clear out of the water and demand our attention a bit longer. A third hammerhead is spotted and the large pod of common dolphin returns, encircling our boat (and the whale) with sightings in literally every direction. What a great day!

  • 20 Inshore Bottlenose Dolphins 
  • 250-300 Short-beaked Common Dolphins
  • 1 Humpback Whale
  • 3 Hammerhead Sharks
  • 80-100 Great Shearwaters
  • 3 Hammerhead Sharks
  • 80-100 Great Shearwaters
  • 1 Cory’s Shearwater

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Log another successful whale watch in the books; we are 9 for 9! 

Yesterday, we sailed under near-perfect conditions and spotted our first of four minke whales. While waiting for the minkes to resurface, we got a very nice look at a hammerhead shark swimming along the surface. This was the first of several sharks, two of which were confirmed as hammerheads. While searching for more whales, we passed a sea turtle and scores of pelagic birds. A breach announced the presence of our first humpback, a juvenile we previously encountered on Sunday’s trip. We then spent time with a second humpback; a curious juvenile who made viewing from the vessel easy and entertaining. We then found two more humpbacks, with blows from other whales observed in the distance. It was another great trip during what has turned out to be an amazing season. We sail every Wednesday and Sunday until Labor Day – come join us!

  • 4 minke whales
  • 4 humpback whales
  • 2 hammerhead sharks, 3-5 others
  • Sea turtle (of unknown species)
  • 80-100 Great Shearwaters
  • 8-12 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 1 Manx Shearwater
  • 14 Phalaropes
  • 1 Northern Gannet, juvenile

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, August 7, 2022

Well, we found them again bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales, sea turtle, and hammerhead shark

It was a bouncy ride for our first hours, but we enjoyed being away from the heat and being out on the ocean looking for wildlife. Pelagic birds flew around us most of the trip (Cory's, Scopoli's, and Great Shearwaters). We found what was most likely a loggerhead sea turtle, but never had great looks at it. Right after the turtle, we found the first of several small pods of inshore bottlenose dolphins feeding on prey at the surface and continued to search for whales.  A beautiful smooth hammerhead shark swam on our starboard side just feet away from us.  We had amazing views. Ultimately a humpback breached in the distance ahead of us.  It was one of the humpbacks we'd seen on our last trip. We began to see more and more humpbacks around us, and were ready to go to them. Unfortunately, a passenger experienced a serious medical issue  and we had to head to the dock and meet EMT's. As much as we wanted to see more whales, the health and safety of people onboard take precedence. As we headed towards the Lighthouse, dolphins came swimming towards us from all over.

We'll be back out there on Wednesday.

  • 2 humpback whales (there were 2 more that we couldn't get to)
  • 60 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 smooth hammerhead shark
  • 1 loggerhead sea turtle
  • 63 Great shearwaters
  • 10 Cory's shearwaters
  • 1 Scopoli's shearwater

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

A truly HOLY S***T DAY! 3 species of cetaceans and hundreds of pelagic birds feeding on sand eels!

Breaching, open-mouth feeding, flipper slapping, mom/calf pairs, associated groups – you name the humpback behavior, we saw it.  At one point, whales, pelagic birds and large striped bass were feeding together on the abundance of prey.  It might be easier to let the photos and videos speak for themselves. Our senior scientist/naturalist/educator, Dr. Artie Kopelman, was on-board, and 2 days later is still reviewing the over 700 photos and videos. They will be posted soon along with the ID’s of the whales.

  • 14 humpbacks (including Mars, Apex, Glo-stick, Liner's 2016 calf, and NYC0185, as well as 9 newly ID'd whales)
  • 2 minke whales
  • ~180 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • ~300 Great shearwaters
  • ~75 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 2 Sooty shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, August 14, 2022

It keeps getting better!!


We left the dock under exceptional conditions, cool comfortable weather, little wind, and unlimited visibility.  Within 5 nautical miles we found a massive group of several hundred inshore bottlenose dolphins. We stayed with them for a while and continued on our way. It took another hour before we saw whales breaching about 4 nautical miles ahead, once we got there we found 9 humpback whales, including some from our last trip. All seven were essentially moving as one, diving together, travelling together, feeding  near the bottom and returning to the surface together.  We know that humpbacks will cooperatively feed and often see that at the surface. Could they have been cooperatively feeding at depth? We’d like to think so.

  • 10 Humpback whales
  • 200+ Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 36 Great Shearwaters
  • 7 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 20 Wilson’s Storm Petrels

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

We found them again

The marine forecast called for 4-6 ft seas, heavy winds and rain, but we sailed out on relatively calm seas with the wind on our backs and rain falling only on the land behind us. Plus, they forgot to mention a 100% chance of whales! We started our successful trip with great views of a smooth hammerhead shark and spent some time with a very small pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins before heading farther offshore for "larger bounty". Three species of shearwaters, several large flocks of Wilson's storm petrels and a handful of common loons kept us company during the transit. Blows were spotted in the distance and we discovered eight individual humpback whales (likely more), including at least one mother/calf pair. At numerous times, we were literally surrounded with whales in all directions of the boat. Out of time, we returned to the dock, but not before enjoying a few more close-up views of the whales with blows from others in the distance. We remain 100% successful in finding cetaceans this season. We sail every Wednesday and Sunday until Labor Day; come join us!

  • 12 Humpback Whales, including one mom/calf pair
  • 4 Inshore Bottlenose Dolphins
  • 1 Smooth Hammerhead Shark
  • 1 Cory's Shearwaters
  • 6-8 Sooty Shearwaters
  • 80-100 Great Shearwaters
  • 60-80 Wilson's Storm Petrels
  • 6 Common Loon

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Another Sunday on the sea with whales!!

Sunday was a calm day with little wind and small waves and gray skies.  We headed out to where we’d seen whales on our last trips and found the whales again about a few nautical miles further west. On the way we encountered a shark (undetermined species) and a loggerhead sea turtle.  We found humpbacks and fin whales.  While we stayed with the 12 or so humpbacks as they open-mouth and cooperatively kick fed on sand eels, we were never able to spend time near the fin whales (maybe next trip?).  These were adult humpbacks, some with calves, and some of the same whales humpback we’ve seen over the past month were there, as were new ones.  We passed by 2 juvenile humpbacks feeding on bunker on the way in, not far from Montauk Point Our photos taken by Dr. Artie Kopelman will be posted later today.

  • 8-12 Humpback whales offshore; 2 closer inshore
  • 2 Finback whales
  • 1 Loggerhead turtle
  • 1 unidentified shark
  • 60 Great Shearwaters
  • 8 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty Shearwaters
  • 2 Manx shearwaters
  • 11 Wilson’s Storm Petrels

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

We did it again!

It was another successful and beautiful day on the water. Having traveled miles offshore to observe whales on previous trips, we were treated to our first sighting just beyond the lighthouse: a breaching and tail-slapping humpback accompanied by a second, smaller individual. Not to be outdone, a shark (possibly a mako) appeared at the same time just beyond our vessel. After spending time with the two whales, we moved on to another spot where 3 more humpbacks would be identified. One of these had terrible propeller scars along the right side of its body. Although healed now, it was a reminder of the dangers from boat strikes and entanglements this population faces. Two minke whales were spotted before three additional humpbacks were spotted, one of which was also tail throwing. Rafts of Cory's Shearwater rested at the surface, likely with bellies full of fish, as blows of whales spouted in the distance. We remain 100% successful in finding cetaceans this season with only three trips remaining. Hope to see you out on the water with us soon!

  • 4-5 Humpback whales 
  • 2 Minke whales
  • 1 shark
  • 20 Great Shearwaters
  • 60-80 Cory's Shearwaters
  • School of 100+ bluefish and 1 leaping tuna

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Another 3 cetacean species trip!

Heading out on choppy seas and limited sightings reported locally, our experienced crew was determined to find cetaceans. Not far from shore, a veteran volunteer spotted a minke whale, the smallest of our local baleen whales, likely feeding on the dense patches of bait fish which could been seen as dark spots in the water. While observing the minke, passengers enjoyed close-up views of a hammerhead shark which swam near, around, and under our vessel to the delight of those onboard. Shortly after, a blow belonging to a humpback whale was spotted and investigated. We soon discovered a familiar "friend", an individual seen on our last trip and several previous trips this season. While spending time with this bottom-feeding humpback, we were treated to a thunderous tail throw and subsequent rollover at the surface. As we kept watch for more activity, a small pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins appeared nearby. Eventually moving away from the whale to observe the dolphins, we discovered two separate blows (from two distinct individuals) and pursued one of them, only to realize that we were back with our familiar friend. Dolphins reappeared on our return to the dock, wrapping up another successful day on the water. Only 3 dates remain for the season - book your trip today!

  • 1 Minke Whale
  • 2 Humpback Whales (the blow of a third was also sighted off in the distance)
  • 12-20 Inshore Bottlenose Dolphins
  • 1 Hammerhead Shark
  • 40-60 Great Shearwaters

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Our successful trips continue: 2 humpback whales!


We headed out on a gorgeous day with unlimited visibility and clear skies. We weren't far out at all when we encountered our first humpback.  This was a small one, perhaps no more than 30' (9.14 meters) long. A minke whale was spotted briefly also. This young whale never fluked when diving and spent much time logging at the surface. We headed to find more and encountered a whale with propeller scars on its left fluke we'd seen last year, MTK.2021.08.15-04 (AKA NYC 0228). Since last year the prop scar closest to the trailing edge were broken through and we could see through it and could see water flowing through it.  This poor whale also had what appear to be fresh entanglement scars on its tail stock. We headed offshore to look for adult whales but found little.  On our was back we did catch a glimpse of a sea turtle and 12 cownose rays. We are looking forward to our last 2 trips of the season!

  • 1 minke whale
  • 2 humpback whales
  • 12 Cownose rays
  • 52 Great Shearwaters
  • 43 Cory's Shearwater
  • 2 Brown Pelicans

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Another stellar trip with 5 humpback whales!!

This incredible season continues! We didn't have to travel far from Montauk Lighthouse to find our first humpback.  This was Scylla's 2016 calf again. The propeller scars and damaged dorsal are hard to look at, but the resilience of this animal is a testament to its will to survive. This 6 year old whale is just almost 40 feet (12.2m) long, and was feeding on the bottom periodically and after a while came to the surface and first, we saw a massive "tail-throw," followed by multiple bouts of pectoral flipper-slapping, and rolling over, sometimes right next to us on the starboard side (our engines were out of gear, of course) and right under our bow.  Just amazing. A small private boat was nearby and appropriately remained motionless as this whale swam and flipper-slapped . The whale let loose with a trumpet-blow" as it dove just ahead of the small vessel. A trumpet blow, i.e., the exhalation has a distinctly audible trumpet-like sound, is often an agonistic sign  - a warning to the folks on the vessel. Scylla's 2016 calf (AKA NYC0224) came over to us on the next surfacing and also trumpet-blew. That was our sign to leave this whale alone.

We saw another humpback breach a few miles away and headed there. The breaching stopped and the whale was feeding and diving in shallow water and only undertook low fluking dives, at least 6 of them.  We left this whale and searched for others. Our 3rd whale was in extremely shallow water, inshore of us and we were in 22 feet of water. We watching bunker begin to jump and saw this  young whale surface lunge through a patch of bunker.  What a beautiful site!

15 minutes later we were with a fourth whale in slightly deeper water. There were layers of bait on the bottom and about from the surface to 15 feet.  We watched the whale dive repeatedly , full-fluking dives, and saw it release a massive fecal plume. We had to head in, but passed by another humpback, this one dove next to us and we recognized it from the fluke patterns and the foul-fetid stench of its blow.

An amazing trip!!

  • 5 humpback whales
  • 35 Great Shearwaters
  • 12 Cory's Shearwater
  • 1 Manx Shearwater
  • 1 Northern Gannet
  • 10 Willets
  • 1 shark (unidentified)

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

Sunday, September 11, 2022

About 100 inshore bottlenose dolphins and  3 humpbacks including 1 new one, and once again spent time with Scylla 2016 calf. Towards the end of the trip, we decided to head offshore a little and as we turned back, we saw breaches and as we sailed to the whale we saw 11 more consecutive breaches, several tail throws and flipper slaps. We got close- it was Scylla’s 2016 calf again!  He stopped breaching but kept flipper slapping including coming up right next to us. Great way to end the season!

  • 3 Humpback whales
  • 112 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 14 Great shearwaters
  • 3 Cory's shearwater

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work

2021 Whale Watch Naturalist Blog

Saturday June 26, 2021

Brief encounter with 20 Inshore bottlenose dolphins and good variety of pelagic birds

The Viking Fleet and CRESLI began our 25th consecutive season of whale watching trips slowly, i.e., finding dolphins. While we were successful in finding cetaceans (the group of animals that include whales, dolphins, and porpoises), our encounter with 20 inshore bottlenose dolphins was brief. We saw them crossing our bow about 500 yards away, but never really got good views of photographs.  The dolphins seemed to be intent on feeding and quickly moved away.  While we tried to find them again, we were unsuccessful.

The pelagic bird life was quite good, seeing 5 different species including 30 Cory’s shearwaters, 8 Great shearwaters, 1 Sooty shearwater, 1 Manx shearwater, and around 50 Wilson storm petrels

A good way start to the 2021 season. We hope to find more tomorrow

  • 20 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 50 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 8 Great shearwaters
  • 30 Cory's shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty shearwater
  • 1 Manx shearwater

Photos from 6/26 and 27 available to view and purchase

 

Sunday June 27, 2021

Humpback and another day with a good variety of pelagic birds

We left the dock at Montauk to clearing skies and fair weather for the second trip of the season.  Today the Viking Starship rounded Montauk Point and cruised southeast.  Over the next few hours we covered a lot of ocean searching for whales.  We observed good numbers and a variety of seabirds along our trip.  Eventually we were excited to start seeing isolated "blows" in the distance.  We proceeded to close with the whale but it was not making many visible blows and was moving, not feeding in one place.  We continued to search heading closer to Long Island and saw a few blows, probably indicating more than one whale in the vicinity.  At one point we saw two blows close together, one larger and one smaller, so perhaps a cow-calf pair.  
We were able to get closer to a Humpback whale who was taking a series of three surface breaths and then diving for about 10 minutes, probably feeding on the baitfish in the area.  Towards the end of our day we got close enough to see it and take a useful photograph of its fluke, allowing us to identify our 1st humpback of the 2021 season.  It was whale NYC0005 (part of the catalog of our research partners at Gotham Whale in the western NY Bight). The last time we'd seen NYC0005 was in August 2018 just 1.5 nautical miles  from yesterday's spot.

  • 1 humpback whale
  • 5 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 20 Great shearwaters
  • 14 Cory's shearwaters
  • 3 Sooty shearwaters

Photos from 6/26 and 27 available to view and purchase

Wednesday June 30, 2021

Finback whale!

We left the dock at Montauk to look for whales and escape the heat.  Once we got into water with sea surface temperatures in the 63-640F, we relished the cool air. The winds were as predicted, SW at 15-20 knots, the seas were as predicted also at 3-4 feet. We headed SW 8 for nautical miles and saw few birds and no cetaceans. We then headed due east and 3 nautical miles later, a whale blows right next to us. It was a faint blow, but a blow none-the-less. This was our first encounter with what eventually was identified as young finback whale ~45' long.  We slowly followed this deep diving, 5-8 minute diving whale for 5 nautical miles, the whale was feeding near the bottom (120') on dense prey patches.  The sea conditions and the speed of this whale made it nearly impossible to clearly identify (although we believe it to be a fin whale) until it steeply surfaced and we could see the unique fin whale characteristics: white right lower jar, blaze, eye stripe, chevron. This whale had distinctive killer whale raking scars on its dorsal fin, and entanglement scars across its back.

What an amazing sight! What a special day! Our 168th identifiable fin whale since 2009!

  • 1 finback whale
  • 2 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 1 Great shearwaters
  • 3 Cory's shearwaters

Photos from 6/30/2021 available to view and purchase

Sunday July 4, 2021

Pelagic birds – yes! Cetaceans – no!

After 31 consecutive successful trips since July 17, 2019 and for only the 11th time since 2009, we were unable to find a cetacean (whale, dolphin, or porpoise.  The conditions were excellent, with unlimited visibility, clear skies, cool temperatures (sea surface temperatures from 52.850F to 67.730F). We traveled over 40nm and encountered pelagic birds often, we saw no whales.  Their prey has begun to show up abundantly, in some areas from the surface to the bottom.  We will find them again

  •  71 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 23 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 11 Great Shearwaters
  • 1 Northern Gannet (immature)
  • 2 black terns (seen near shore and ID’d by birders) 

Wednesday July 7, 2021

We’re back at it again: Humpback and short-beaked common dolphins!

It was the perfect day to get on the water, escape the heat, and look for whales and dolphins. The visibility was good, as were the seas and we headed out to the SSE. It was an hour before we found our first blows from a humpback whale.  We traveled with this whale as it searched for food over the next 75 minutes and 2 nautical miles, sometimes being down for 7-8 minutes. This was a young humpback and one we’d not seen before, our 139th different humpback off Montauk since 2009. On our way back, we encountered a rambunctious pod of 30 short-beaked common dolphins

  •  1 Humpback whale
  • 30 Short-beaked common dolphins
  • 1 Thresher shark
  • 15 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 40 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 20 Great Shearwaters

Photos from 7/7/2021 available to view and purchase

Saturday July 10, 2021

An Awesome Day of Whales and Dolphins!

We left Montauk today with overcast skies, heading southeast to where we had previously seen whales.  As soon as we passed Montauk Point, we had reports of dolphins close inshore, south of the point.  We headed over and soon came upon a pod of about 10 bottlenose dolphins.
After some time with these dolphins, we continued southeast.  We had only traveled about 4 miles before we started to see “blows”.  We came up to a group of 6 humpback whales. They remained in this one area actively feeding.  We got some great looks at both the mature and a younger, small humpback (who once swam under the boat and surfaced only 30 feet away).  
 
The whales were making short dives to feed on the abundant bands of fish at the bottom and then on some fish at the surface.  The dolphins from earlier arrived, were joined by another pod of bottlenose, and rapidly attacked the surface schools of fish, churning the water white.  Several of the dolphins were swimming very close to a few of the whales, perhaps opportunistically catching fish fleeing from the feeding humpbacks.   We stayed with these whales for a few hours, with passengers getting good looks of the whales feeding all around the vessel and were able to take some good ID photos for the database.  One adult humpback had been struck by a large propeller and had extensive scars to show for it.
 
Being so close to Montauk some of the photographers aboard managed photos of whales with the lighthouse in the background for some memorable images.

  •  6 Humpback whales
  • 40 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 15 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 4 Cory’s Shearwaters

Photos from 7/10/21 available to view and purchase

Sunday July 11, 2021

Another Awesome Day of Whales and Dolphins!

We left Montauk today with unlimited visibility and headed to where we had seen whales on Saturday.  As soon as we passed Montauk Point, we looked for dolphins and continued heading southeast.  Our first blows were from a whale seen on Saturday.  This poor whale is identifiable because of a massive set of propeller scars on its right side and its dorsal fin was mostly gone.  This is a young whale that had been seen in the NY harbor area and catalogued as NYC0224 by our colleagues at Gotham Whale. It was last seen around NYC on 6/25. We stayed with this whale for a while and headed to a second whale in the area. We ultimately met and photographed 4 humpbacks on this trip.  They were busy feeding and looking for food, often times coming up right next to us to check us out.  We are never in gear when waiting for whales to surface and presented no threats. After a few hours with the whales, it was time to head back.  On our way in we saw a groups of about 40 bottlenose dolphins and we stayed with them for a bit before proceeded back. By the way, we did have to retrieve many balloons on this trip, please never release helium filled balloons!

  •  4 Humpback whales
  • 40 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 32 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 2 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 20 Great Shearwaters
  • 1 Manx Shearwater
  • 1 Sooty Shearwater

Photos from 7/11/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday July 17, 2021

7 Hammerhead sharks, a tail throwing/slapping humpback, bottlenose dolphins, and too many balloons!

We headed out to look for whales and once again to escape from the heat. The visibility was 4 miles at first, but continued to open up as we headed south for a while, then east and after 2 hours from the dock we found our 1st surprise - a large hammerhead shark (unsure of which species). Every direction we moved brought us new hammerhead sharks. Over 0.6 nautical miles, we encountered 7 different hammerheads.  That's a record for us. As we continued on, we saw little,  and picked up too many balloons (c'mon folks it's time to stop), but never stopped looking. At around 6 PM we saw a blow in the distance, and soon smelled the putrid, fetid, foul odor of a humpback with a possible lung infection (whale flu, as termed by Dr. Paul Forestell and others). The whale (NYC0084) was tail-throwing and tail-slapping (behaviors often used for non-vocal communication). We were in 130' of water, but the prey were only 35' down, so this whale did some low-fluking dives in search of food. We eventually had to leave, just as a small pod of about 20 bottlenose dolphins paid us a brief visit.  We headed in through pea soup fog and returned late, but happy.

  •  1 Humpback whale
  • 20 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 7 hammerhead sharks
  • 12 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 6 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 4 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Manx shearwater
  • 6 phalaropes (unsure of species)

Photos from 7/17/21 available to view and purchase

Wednesday July 21, 2021

Another double species day! Humpbacks and minke whales!

We headed out to excellent conditions with nearly unlimited visibility,2-3 foot seas,and reports of whales and dolphins nearby. With the predicted stormy conditions to occur within a few hours, we headed west and stayed nearer to shore than on previous trips. Spoiler alert - the predicted severe weather passed to our south.  We found 2 humpbacks and a minke over a 2 nautical mile stretch.  Both were young and active. One was tail throwing, and later breached right next to us.  The 2nd whale was resting (logging) quite often, interspersed with dives and close approaches. Our 1st humpback showed up again and we watched it follow bunker (Atlantic menhaden) and lunge feed though large piles of bunker.

  •  2 Humpback whales
  • 1 minke whale
  • 5 Wilson’s Storm Petrels

Photos from 7/21/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday July 24, 2021

Minke whale, bunker, and Ocean sunfish!

Beautiful day to be out on the water today, calm seas of 1 – 2 feet, unlimited visibility and water temperature between 70 – 72 degrees Fahrenheit.  While traveling west along the coast of Montauk we came upon a large school of bunker (Atlantic Menhaden).  Hoping to find some cetaceans looking for a nice meal but not luck.  Traveling away from the coast, we found an ocean sunfish (Mola mola) which swam directly next to the boat giving everyone onboard a great view.  Traveling further away from shore a Minke whale gave us three quick views before disappearing out of sight

  • 1 minke whale
  • 9 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 2 Cory's shearwaters

Photos from 7/24/21 available to view and purchase,

Wednesday July 28, 2021

A special day!! 8 humpback whales,1 minke whale, 120 bottlenose dolphins!!


Our best day of the 2021 season so far started with many whale reports. good visibility and good seas. Within 35 minutes of Montauk Lighthouse we were with the first of 8 humpback whales. We encountered just about every humpback behavior we could think of including: breaching, flipper-slapping, tail-slapping, tail throwing, low fluking dives, high fluking dives, logging. Here, we also found 120 inshore bottlenose dolphins (3 groups of 40) and 1 minke whale. We often had whales on every side of the vessel. All of this in a 3.5 square mile area

8 humpback whales
1 minke whale
120 inshore bottlenose dolphin
1 Wilson's storm petrel
1 Northern Gannet

Photos from 7/28/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday July 31, 2021

2 humpback whales

Within 20 minutes of passing the Montauk Lighthouse, we saw our first whale spout.  We spent some time with this young humpback whale giving us a blow or two and before diving down.  Showing us its tail fluke, presumably to forage on baitfish close to sea floor and then surfacing every three minutes or so. This humpback gave us a peduncle throw for everyone to see as well.  Continuing heading west, we saw another young humpback whale giving us a blow or two before diving.  This humpback only fluked once likely feeding close to the surface.  Overall, a very nice day out on the water with unlimited visibility.  
 

  • 2 Humpback Whales
  • 1 Corey’s Shearwater

Photos from 7/31/21 available to view and purchase

Sunday August 1, 2021

Another successful trip! 2minkes and 1 humpback!

What a wonderful day we had on the Viking Starship! Unlimited visibility and crisp cool air were perfect conditions for finding whales. Again with 30 minutes of passing Montauk Light, we found a minke whale that allowed us some wonderful views as it swam repeatedly near the bow.  We headed further and 45 minutes later, another minke (larger the 1st one) surfaced within 2 yards of the starboard side of our bow sprit. Captain Davy immediately stopped and the whale dove as the crew collectively held its breath. Within 30 minutes we encountered a 27-36' humpback that was one we had seen on Wednesday, We had amazing views as this whale rolled over and was logging (resting) with intermittent low-fluking and high-fluking dive to reach the massive concentrations of prey at 40' (mid-water) and 75' (bottom).

  • 2 minke whales
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 5 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 4 Corey's shearwaters

Photos from 8/1/21 available to view and purchase

Wednesday August 4, 2021

Whales in the rain!

We headed out with excellent visibility and just a light misty rain, hoping that the rain would stay to our south. Oh well, we were wrong, although when the wind was behind us, the rain was quite tolerable.  We weren’t really fazed by the rain and continued to search for whales.  After about an hour,  a minke whale did a full-body breach just 200 yds from then port bow.  It was an amazing, yet fleeting sight that only a handful of us saw. An hour later we saw the tell-tall splash of a breach and headed to find a humpback lunge feeding and taking high-fluking dives. These were great sights that made the rainy trip worthwhile. The humpback was one we’d seen in this area 2 weeks earlier.

  • 2 minke whales
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 1 Ocean Sunfish
  • 48 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 4 Cory's shearwaters

Photos from 8/4/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday August 7, 2021

Only fainting glimpses today.

Nice weather, favorable seas and 10+ miles of visibility, while traveling over 44 miles only yielding a few of us a brief view of a cetacean.  We had an unidentified whale blow spotted by one of our CRESLI volunteers a mile or so behind us.  We searched long and hard but never saw the whale come up again.  A while later, a dolphin was spotted by a few members of the crew only to swim away and not seen again.  We also had an unknown shark species swim by close to the boat, giving people on that side a quick view before disappearing. We do not get many trips like this with great conditions and little to no sightings.  Our track record says we will have better days in the future.

  •  1 unidentified whale species blow
  • 1 dolphin
  • 1 shark
  • 6 Cory’s shearwaters

Sunday August 8, 2021

Another AMAZING multi-species day! 

Unlimited visibility, flat seas, gray skies, with just a few sprinkles for 2 minutes after leaving the dock - a far cry from the storm/rainy weather to our west. Our first whale was a minke, not far from Montauk Lighthouse. Within 45 minutes we saw 2 other minkes, and then the first of 5 humpback whales. Within an hour we found 3 more minkes, another humpback, and 15 inshore bottlenose dolphins and that was just the beginning. Within the next 40 minutes we encountered 4 more humpbacks and 45 more inshore bottlenose dolphins. To top it off, we found a smooth hammerhead shark on our way back in.

  • 6 humpback whales
  • 6 minke whales
  • 60 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 hammerhead shark
  • 2 Cory's shearwaters
  • 5 Wilson's storm petrels

Photos from 8/8/21 available to view and purchase

Wednesday August 11, 2021

4.5 year old humpback whale (Liner 2016 calf) again!

Today, the fog that had been around for hours lifted and we were able to head out. Our 3 miles of visibility was enough and within 30 minutes after passing Montauk Lighthouse, we found our 1st whale. This was a 4.5 year old humpback whale (Liner 2016 calf) that has been around Montauk for at least 4 weeks. It was busy feeding on prey at the bottom, spending up to 9 minutes down. At one point, it BREACHED right off our port bow (15 week away). An awesome full body breach!

After spending 50 minutes with this whale, we decided to look for others. What we found, unfortunately, was dense fog everywhere. That was it and we decided to head back to port.

  • 1 humpback whale
  • 4 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 2 Cory's shearwaters
  • 1 Great shearwater
  • 1 Manx shearwater

Photos from 8/11/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday August 14, 2021

An awesome 3 species of cetaceans day

Another great day to be out on the water.  10+ miles of visibility, calm seas, a cool breeze and plenty of sunshine.  Less than half an hour after passing Montauk Lighthouse, we came upon a pair of humpback whales giving us plenty of views with short dive times due to large schools of Atlantic menhaden (bunker) at the surface.  One even showed off giving us a few peduncle throws. As the Viking Starship continued heading west we found 3 minke whales with one of them giving us a couple of nice views to make comparisons of size and behavioral patterns with the humpback whales we had just seen.  Next we saw a large Mola mola (ocean sunfish) just resting at the surface.  As we headed further south we found another humpback whale and 30 – 40 inshore bottlenose dolphins.  Continuing our trip, we found another minke whale and approximately 20 inshore bottlenose dolphins swimming in the same general area.   There we several whale blows off in distance in multiple directions that we just did not have time to investigate.  As we headed back to Montauk, we saw approximately 10 dolphins and another minke whale.  Later approaching the lighthouse, our original 2 humpbacks put on quite a show breaching and pec slapping filling up customer’s memory cards with many pictures and videos. What a fabulous way to end a great trip.

  • 3 humpback whales
  • 5 minke whales
  • 60-70 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 Wilson’s storm petrel
  • 3 Cory’s shearwaters

Photos from 8/14/21 available to view and purchase

Sunday August 15, 2021

Another spectacular 3 species trip! Humpbacks, minkes, and inshore bottlenose dolphins!

We couldn't have asked for better conditions - unlimited visibility, 10-15 knot winds out of the NW, and 2' seas that later flattened out as the wind changed to SW. Within 20 minutes of passing Montauk Lighthouse we were on our first whale, MTK.2021.08.15-01, a flipper slapping, rolling humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae). 20 minutes later, we are visited by a small ocean sunfish (Mola mola). 20 minutes later, we  meet our 2nd humpback and our 3rd humpback a few minutes after that. 20 minutes later, we encounter our 4th humpback.  It's a young whale (small) and has survived an encounter with a propeller that left terrible scars on its left fluke. It was resting periodically and feeding, but it looked to be unwell and weak, or so we thought, due to the tremendous areas of sloughed skin. We ever wrong! Five breaches followed by 10 minutes of flipper-slapping showed how much energy this whale had. Throughout our hours among the humpbacks we encountered 3 different minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata). As we headed in, we encountered an aggregation of several small groups of inshore bottlenose, perhaps 45 in total.

What a special day!

  • 4 humpback whales
  • 3 minke whales
  • 60 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 ocean sunfish
  • 2 Cory's shearwaters

Photos from 8/15/21 available to view and purchase

Wednesday August 18, 2021

Our best trip of the year!!

Once again we had perfect conditions and lots of whales reported to us. 15 minutes after passing Montauk Lighthouse, we saw our first of about 12 minke whales. We encountered our the 1st of 11 humpback whales 30 minutes later! We were able to get close to photograph and identify 6 humpbacks, while the other 5 were seen within a 800 yard radius around us as we left out last whale – we’d run out of time.  

What made this trip extra special was that the last whale we were close to (the 2016 calf of Nile) was a true survivor. This young male had been severely entangled in 2900 lbs. of fishing gear and was disentangled via a herculean 4 day effort (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/humpback-whale-disentangled-new-york-all-thanks-team-effort). We were the first vessel to encounter this whale last year 3 weeks after being freed.  We saw the extent of its injuries and were glad (as was all involved) to have seen it alive on August 19, 2020.  To see it again 364 days later only 4 nautical miles away from where we last saw it on August 2020 was special.  To see that the horrendous wounds have healed was even more special. Everyone onboard was elated!

11 humpback whales
12 minke whales
1 hammerhead shark
25 Wilson’s storm petrels
15 Cory’s shearwaters
 

Photos from 8/18/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday August 21, 2021

Minke whale and ~100-120 short-beaked common dolphins!

So, what do you do on  the day before a hurricane is supposed to hit? Go looking for whales and dolphins, of course! The visibility was good, albeit the clouds and sky were gray, while the long, rolling 5’ ground swell was very comfortable.  Once again we found our first whale, another minke (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), right near Montauk Lighthouse.  We also saw a blow from a humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) ½ mile away, but that whale didn’t show up again.  We headed somewhat offshore to stay in deeper calmer waters. We found no other baleen whales, but were able to spend at least on hour with a large aggregation of about 100 short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis).  The dolphins were amazing, with lots of mom and calf pairs, lots of porpoising, and jumping.  These were an aggregation of several social groups, and often some would come over to try and ride of bow.  We made no attempts to encourage this behavior, but even when moving slowly, the dolphins came to try and catch a lift in our bow wake.  The lucky people along the bow were able to hear these animals vocalize and communicate with one another. What an amazing experience to undergo.

We hope that you weather the storm well and hope to see you out there with us on future trips.

  • 1 minke whale
  • 100-120 short-beaked common dolphins
  • 30 Cory’s shearwaters
  • 5 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty shearwater
  • 20 Wilson's storm petrels

Photos from 8/21/21 available to view and purchase

Wednesday August 25, 2021

Another multi-species day!

As we left the dock, a young gray seal (Halichoerus grypus)that we'd seen before was swimming around searching for food. Our trip on the oceans started out with a minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) that just a few of us saw (we call that a "stinky minke").  We then found a small group (10) of inshore bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and later encountered one large group (50) and another small group (10), about 70 in all.  In the interim we spent time up close with a truly "stinky" humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).  "Stinky" due to the mildly fetid, funky smell of its blow (perhaps due to a lung infection). Stinky humpback blows are and not that common but truly memorable.  The "bait" was abundant often near the sea floor (about 90 feet depth), we saw others blows in the distance, including a massive fin whale blow at least a mile further south, unfortunately we weren't able to fin it after we'd spent our time with the humpback. It  was a relatively calm day but warm day, with sea-surface temperatures in the low-mid 70's. 

  • 1 Humpback whale
  • 1 Minke whale
  • 70 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 gray seal
  • 13 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 24 Cory's shearwaters
  • 2 Great shearwaters

Photos from 8/25/21 available to view and purchase

Sunday, August 29, 2021

Another three species day, but a long one.

The day started out with an Atlantic gray seal (Halichoerus grypus atlantica)feeding in the waters of Montauk Harbor right behind the Starship as we boarded passengers. 

Conditions were excellent as we headed out to the east where humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) had been spotted earlier in the day. We didn’t find that whale, but did find a group of inshore bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), a good start. As we headed south west we came across a few minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and a much larger group of inshore bottlenose dolphins. Late in the trip, our way back in we found a humpback whale! This was a whale we’d fist seen back in early July. It was wonderful to see and made everyone happy, but we returned to the dock 40 minutes. So, it was a long trip but worthwhile.

  • 1 humpback whale
  • 3 minke whales
  • 100 inshore bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 gray seal
  • 39 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
  • 5 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 10 Great Shearwaters
  • 1 Manx Shearwater

Photos from 8/29/21 available to view and purchase

Saturday September 4, 2021

Baleen whales, birds, bunker, and a bat!

What a great day to be on the water! The weather was absolutely gorgeous with unlimited visibility and calm seas. We spent the first hour cruising near shore in search of whales. Soon, a blow was spotted by one of our volunteers and we observed a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) casually swimming and diving in approximately 50 feet of water. Then things got exciting with a surprise breach in full view of passengers watching from the bow. Shoals of bunker (Atlantic menhaden) were visible at the surface in about 32 feet of water and the whale moved into shallower water to feed. We knew something extraordinary was about to happen when the fish began leaping from the water followed immediately by the lunge-feeding humpback. At this same time, a minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) was spotted on the other side of our vessel and was either joined by a second minke or spotted again a moment later. The humpback eventually moved on and so did we, returning along the coast looking for other mammals. Although we did not find any along our path home, we did encounter three different species of shearwater (Great, Cory's, and Manx) characteristically shearing their way across the water, adding to a bird list that already included a northern gannet spotted earlier in the trip. We also had a brief view of a bat (unknown species). With such an amazing and beautiful day on the water and only one trip remaining for the season, it will be sad to say goodbye to summer but we thankfully have many happy memories to keep us warm.

  • 1 humpback whale
  • 1 Minke whale
  • 5 Wilson's storm petrel
  • 3 Great shearwaters
  • 1 Northern gannet
  • 1 bat

Photos from 9/4/21 available to view and purchase

Sunday September 5, 2021

Our last 2021 trip was a winner!

Our final trip for the 2021 season was anopther multi-species day that started, once again, with a large male gray seal in the harbor right behind the Viking Starship.

The conditions at sea were excellent: unlimited visibility, gray skies, and no sun glare. We headed west towards where we'd seen a humpback whale the day before. We found our humpback whale there too.Today's whale MTK.2021.07.28-04 has been seen by us 3 times over the past 5 weeks, a fine example of short-term site fidelity.  What a fine way to end this season with another view of one of our 28 humpbacks (including 16 new ones).

  • 1 Atlantic gray seal
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 2 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 10 Cory's sheawaters
  • 1 Great shearwater

Photos from 9/5/21 available to view and purchase

 

CRESLI 2020 Whale Watch Sighting Report Blog

Saturday July 18, 2020

4 humpback whales and massive schools of Atlantic menhaden (bunker).

Great way to start the season!

The Viking Fleet and CRESLI began our 24th consecutive season of whale watching trips just where we left off, i.e., finding whales. We had reports of whales that morning (seen from shore by our naturalist, Dr. Artie Kopelman, and heard in the fog aboard the Viking Starship that morning by the intrepid Viking Fleet mate, Joey Ferguson). We also had reports of dolphins west of town. Out we headed and within a short while we were past Montauk Light looking for cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises). Shortly thereafter a fog bank rolled in and we continued on and listened for blows. Eventually the fog lifted and we found ourselves in the midst of many massive schools of bunker. Here we encountered feeding humpback whales. Two juveniles were photographed and we had brief glimpses of 2 others.

A wonderful start to the 2020 season.

  • 4 Humpback whales
  • 1 unidentified sea turtle
  • 4 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 16 Sanderlings
  • 20 Great Black-backed gulls
  • 2 Double-crested Cormorants

 

PHOTOS from 7/18/2020 

 

Saturday July 25, 2020

3 humpback whales, 1 minke whale and more

Our 2nd trip of the 2020 season didn't let us down. We had reports of whales from several places and began our trip with a great plan. With excellent visibility and conditions, we found our first whale within 40 minutes from passing Montauk Light, a humpback. This whale was busy searching for food 100' down and would rise to the surface after a few minutes, blow 5-6 times and dive. We stayed with the whale until it tail slapped and we decided to head further. We headed ENE towards and found our 2nd whale about 1 hour later.  We'd seen it from ~1.5 miles away and when we got near the area,  it popped up just under our bowsprit. Luckily we were almost at idle speed. A minke and a thrird humpback joined us shortly thereafter.  This last whale had significant Orca raking scars on its dorsal fin and flukes. We encountered other species duringour travels including 3 Ocean Sunfish, 1 jumping White Marlin, about 40 Wilson's Storm Peterels, and about 40 Great Shearwaters

  • 3 Humpback whales
  • 1 Minke whale
  • 3 Ocean sunfish
  • 1 white marlin
  • 40 Wilson's storm petrels
  • 40 Great shearwaters

 

PHOTOS from 7/25/2020

Saturday August 01, 2020

4 humpback whales - 18 and 10 consecutive breaches at the end of our trip! Nice way to end the afternoon.

Our 3rd trip of the 2020 season was one for the books. Again, we had reports of whales from several places and began our trip with a great plan to survey an area not far from Gurney's. Excellent visibility and conditions allowed us to see blows from really far. Our first stop was ~6nm (nautical miles) south of the Lighthouse, where we had seen blows from about 1.5 nm away.  Those whales were gone, so we headed west (2 nm) and found the first of 2 whales, one seen on the 7/18/2020 trip (MTK.2020.07.18-01). Our 2nd whale was one we had seen on the 7/25/2020 trip (MTK.2020.07.25-02). We also encountered an aggregation of about 100 Western North Atlantic Northern Migratory Coastal Stock (AKA inshore) bottlenose dolphins.

We had the priviledge of staying with these whales for over 2 hours, watching them dive for food at the sea floor, rising up 3-7 minutes later and resuming their dives.  Both whales we juveniles and both had signs of previous entanglements. One whale had a tuna lure hooked into the left splashguard region (side of the blow hole). We were ready to leave and the whales began breaching simultaneously, each one on each side of the vessel.  We stayed with MTK.2020.07.25-02 and it breached 18 times in 8 minutes, while MTK.2020.07.18-01 breached 10 times. Wow! The tubercles on the leading edge of a humpback's long pectoral flippers provide hydrodynamic lift and allow these whales to rise through the water column at steep angles without stalling, hence reducing the energy needed to breach. 

  • 4 Humpback whales
  • 100 Western North Atlantic Northern Migratory Coastal Stock (AKA inshore) bottlenose dolphins 

PHOTOS from 8/01/2020 trip 

 

Saturday August 08, 2020

4 humpback whales - and 2 minkes.

Within 30 minutes of passing Montauk Lighthouse and within 10 minutes of the crew “on-station” to look in earnest for whales, we saw our first blows. Our 1st humpback was one we had seen last week as well about 8 nm (nautical miles) to the SSW and only about 4 nm from Montauk Lighthouse. This was the first of our 4 humpbacks and 2 minke whales of the day. Our 2nd humpback was 2 miles away at first and joined the other whale in feeding at depth on bunker. We saw massive bunker pods at the surface, but they were only the upper boundaries of giant 80’ thick plumes of bunker. Our minke whales joined in briefly. A while later, several miles away, we found our last 2 humpbacks

  • 4 Humpback whales
  • 2 Minke whales
  • 1 unidentified sea turtle
  • 4 Laughing Gulls
  • 2 ring-billed Gulls
  • 8 Herring Gulls
  • 6 common terns
  • 11 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 12 Great Shearwaters

Bird counts thanks to David Chernack

PHOTOS from 8/08/2020 trip

Wednesday August 12, 2020

3 Humpbacks and about 300 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory Common Bottlenose dolphins

WOW what a trip!

We had reports of whales around they Midway Buoy and within an hour we found out fist whale, a humpback we hadn’t seen before. A short while after staying with this whale, we came upon our first groups of NW Atlantic Norther Migratory (AKA “In-shore”) Common Bottlenose dolphins. At least 3 groups interacting and seemingly driving massive groups of prey.  The groups dolphins would work together, with some driving forward and others turning to produce vortex-like field which formed a large circular slick.  The dolphins would converge and chaos would occur. Our second groups of dolphins, over 180 of them joined in the fray. Were they feeding? We never saw them with prey in their mouths? We they mating? This we did see.  So about 300 dolphins did this for nearly 2 hours.

Then we found our second humpback, another new one for us. It was breaching, followed by the typical flipper slapping. 20 minutes and a total of 18 breaches, interspersed with flipper slapping bouts. We had to head back to the dock and passed another humpback on the way in  but couldn’t stop.  Well we hope to see it again.

  • 3 humpbacks
  • 300 300 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory Common Bottlenose dolphins
  • 2 Manx Shearwaters
  • 10 Great Shearwaters
  • 10 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 1 confirmed Scopoli’s Shearwater

PHOTOS from the 8/12/2020 trip

Wednesday August 19, 2020

Humpbacks and more Common Bottlenose dolphins

A special day for many reasons

As usual, we were headed to where we had seen whales on our previous trip. We were lucky enough to encounter a very special whale, Nile’s 2016 calf.

Three weeks ago this 4 year-old calf was found severely entangled in 3900 pounds of cable and line about 10 miles out of New York Harbor. He had just enough slack to allow him to surface in breath. It took the disentanglement teams three days to get him out. Our sighting of this juvenile whale with the first since he was disentangled. The disentanglement was a joint effort of many institutions, they’ve been notified of our sighting and are elated! He is scarred severely but is feeding and seems to be moving quite well we have our fingers crossed. By the way, we also saw him in 2018. Read about his disentanglement here

Other humpback whales and minke whales were seen, but only three humpbacks were photographed on this trip including NYC0085 (also seen last year) and a new whale we call MTK.2020.08.19-04.

As in last trip, we also encountered inshore bottlenose dolphins, but this time in small groups. Maybe a total of 120 that were working to catch prey and we saw mating too. It was a special day and we hope for the best for Nile’s 2016 calf.

  • 5 humpbacks
  • 1 minke
  • 100-120 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory Common Bottlenose dolphins
  • 2 Manx Shearwaters
  • ~10 Great Shearwaters
  • ~13 Cory’s Shearwaters

PHOTOS from the 8/19/2020 trip

 

Saturday August 22, 2020

5 Humpbacks and about 60 Common Bottlenose dolphins

Today's trip couldn't have started out better, with a humpback whale in Block Island Sound before we even made it to the ocean! This was a small humpback, about 24 feet (7.3 meters), probably less than 1 year old, by itself about 1 nautical mile NNW of Montauk Point. We stayed with this whale for a short while and then headed out to find others.

It wasn't long before we found Nile’s 2016 calf again. We stayed with this 4 year old malefor some time and were able to get additional photos documenting his injuries. As we did a few days ago, we shared these photos with the Center for Coastal Studies Animal Entanglement Response (MAER) personnel and others and are glad to hear that his wounds are healing well.

4 other humpback whales and 1 minke whale were seen.  As in last trip, we also encountered inshore bottlenose dolphins, but this time in even smaller groups.

  • 5 humpbacks
  • 1 minke
  • 60 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory Common Bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 Sooty Shearwater 
  • 4 Great Shearwaters
  • 6 Cory’s Shearwaters
  • 12 Laughing Gulls
  • 24 Great Blackback Gulls
  • 20 Common Terns
  • 1 Forster's Tern
  • 12 Double-crested Cormorants
  • 1 Great Egret
  • 2 Chimney Swifts
  • 1 American Redstart
    • Bird count by Patrician Aitken

PHOTOS from the 8/22/2020 trip

 

Wednesday August 26, 2020

Whales and dolphins! 40 minutes of inverted lob-tailing by 1 humpback 

A few hours before our trip, Dr. Artie Kopelman (CRESLI president and senior scientist/naturalist) observe several humpbacks from shore at the western end of Montauk. High winds from the NNW helped us to decide to head west to look for whales. Right near Montauk Point we encountered 2 whales, a minke and a humpback. The humpback was diving for 9 minutes at a stretch, and the minke was almost impossible to see . After 3 minutes with these whale, we continued westward to find a small group of bottlenose dolphins. We ultimately turned to have the wind behind, and shortly later, we found a humpback we'd see on 8/19/2020 and 8/18/2019, namely NYC0084. In 2019, it was breaching, today (8/25/2020), it was lob-tailing for at least 40 minutes, almost non-stop. 

Lob-tailing, breaching, flipper slapping are incredible to see and hear. These behaviors use up lots of energy. Why do humpbacks exhibit these behaviors? Well, they serve many purposes, from helping to remove epibionts ("hitch-hiking organisms living on the skin), to non-vocal communication. Cetaceans are dependent upon sound for communication of long and short distances. This whale might have been signaling others about the massive quantities of prey in the water column.  Let's hope so.

  • 2 humpbacks
  • 1 minke
  • 15 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory (AKA inshore) Common bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 Great Shearwater
  • 1 Sooty Shearwater
  • 2 Cory's Shearwaters

PHOTOS from the 8/26/2020 trip

 

Wednesday September 2, 2020

Breaching, lob-tailing, flipper slapping humpback and more!

Our 9th trip of 2020 was difficult at first, but ultimately it did not disappoint. Just as in the past few trips, a small humpback would blow and dive, with dive times over 10 minutes long. We stayed with this whale and a few inshore bottlenose dolphins but decided to head off and search elsewhere. It took a bit but just before 4PM in the distance (2 nautical miles) we saw a humpback lob-tailing (slamming its tail on the water) over and over again. We reached it and it continued lob-tailing, the whale eventually rolling onto its back and began flipper slapping, also repeatedly. In a short while, it began to breach repeatedly, interspersed with flipper slapping and logging (resting). Wow, what a wonderfully array of humpback behaviors to see. This whale in MTK.2019.07.31-01, a whale we saw on 7/31/19 1.34 nm ESE of where we saw it today.

  • 2 humpbacks
  • 15 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory (AKA inshore) Common bottlenose dolphins
  • 1 Great Shearwater

PHOTOS from the 9/02/2020 

 

Saturday September 5, 2020

Another amazing trip with humpbacks breaches and peduncle (tail) throws!

It was another great day of whale watching. Calms seas greeted us as we headed out past the Montauk Lighthouse.  Soon after, we came upon a small humpback giving use may views as it was feeding close to shore as there were Atlantic Menhaden (commonly called bunker) everywhere.  After everyone had plenty of views and pictures of this whale we headed south in search of more whales.  We came across our second humpback of the day giving us some blows and not much else but we could see another humpback off in the distant putting on quite a show with lots of splashing.  As we got closer, we had great views of our third humpback of the day with full-body breaching and lots of peduncle throws.  Memory cards and cellphone certainly were filled up today.

  • 3 humpbacks
  • 1 Great Shearwater

PHOTOS from the 9/05/2020 trip

 

Sunday September 6, 2020

Oh my, 60 bottlenose dolphins and 8 humpbacks in al!

It was a little bouncy as we headed out in search of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises). We headed directly to where we had seen the whales yesterday, but we couldn't find them at first and we headed to another area.  It took some time, but we decided to head NNE and Captain David Marmeno found a whale about 2.3 nautical miles (nm) from where yesterday's whales were. Once we found our first whale, we began seeing MANY more. We encountered one of Saturday's whales and stayed with and photographed 3 others within 1.1 square miles. We also encountered multiple groups of inshore bottlenose dolphins, about 60 individuals in all. On our way back to Montauk, we kept seeing more blows from 5 more whales within 1 nm in every direction but none directly in front of us. We wish we had more time.  We will try again on Saturday September 12,2020 

  • 8 humpbacks (3 were photographed, 5 others nearby just out of range)
  • 60 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory (AKA inshore) Common bottlenose dolphins
  • 2 Cory's Shearwaters
  • 1 Great Shearwater

PHOTOS from the 9/06/2020 trip

 

Sunday September 13, 2020

Humpbacks, dolphins, and shearwaters! Oh my!

Our last 2020 trip continued our perfect season (100% success). Once again, our first humpback was a very small and elusive one, surfacing for a single blow and submerging for 9-11 minutes. We saw it fluke, but were never able to get photos of this whale. We headed on our way and encountered about 100 inshore bottlenose dolphins. Heading further east, we found our next whale, a juvenile humpback we'd seen back on 7/25/2020. We met up with another group of about 45 inshore bottlenose dolphins before coming across another humpback, one we'd originally seen on 7/31/2019, and again on 9/2/2020. The prey items in the water column were often very dense and either extended throughout the water, or hung to the bottom.  We saw more shearwaters than we'd seen in a while, often circling above the surfacing whales.

  • 3 humpbacks
  • 145 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory (AKA inshore) Common bottlenose dolphins
  • 12 Cory's Shearwaters
  • 3 Great Shearwaters
  • 1 Sooty Shearwater

PHOTOS from the 9/13/2020 

 

Purchase tickets here https://vikingfleet.com/activities/whale-watching/

CRESLI/Viking Fleet 2019 Whale Watch

2019 - 95.8% SUCCESS (23 OUT OF 24 TRIPS)

 

 DATE/REPORT

Wednesday July 3, 2019

Basking shark, Ocean sunfish, and dolphins!

We started out just where we left off, still finding cetaceans on every trip - ~70 short-beaked common dolphins.

 

What a gorgeous day to be on the water. While it took sometime before we found interesting animals, we did indeed find all kinds of critters. A small basking shark was our first aquatic vertebrate and the first seen by many of our passengers. Shortly thereafter we found a small ocean sunfish that gave us great views of its swimming and jumping capability. A short while later we found our first aggregation of 

about 30-40 short beaked common dolphins. This group was loaded with lots of, you guessed it, small dolphins. moms with calves and loads of juveniles. 

 

Many of the adult dolphins were engaged in mating, a rare sight for most people. Perhaps that's why the young ones were all together. Ourt second aggregation of 30 dolphins were similarly "engaged." We also were able to find Wilson's storm petrels, Great shearwaters, Cory's shearwaters, Sooty shearwaters, and Manx shearwaters

 

70 Short-beaked common dolphins

1 Basking shark
1 Ocean sunfish
25 Wilson's storm petrels
15 Great shearwaters
2 Manx shearwaters
1 Sooty shearwater
1 Cory's shearwater

PHOTOS

 Friday, July 5, 2019

A Big Minke Day

Today's Viking Fleet/CRESLI Whale watch started off with a dramatic fog bank that sweep over our boat as we were leaving the Montauk area. The thick fog soon fell away and we progressed through calm seas and sunny blue skies for the rest of the day.

After reaching a point about 12 miles from Montauk point we encountered the first of the Minke whales. They were apparently feeding on the thick schools of small fish below us. The adults and children aboard got many looks at these small baleen whales as they spent time around the boat. We continued along at a leisurely pace and stopped several times as we encountered several small groups that day, for a total of 12 whales seen. 

Many small seabirds, Wilson's Storm Petrels, where dipping into the seas around us for food too. A sharp-eyed passenger also spotted a young Loggerhead sea turtle alongside the boat.

12 Minke whales 
1 Loggerhead sea turtle 
25 Wilson Storm Petrels
1 Great shearwater

PHOTOS

 

Sunday, July 7, 2019

Humpback whales, Kemp's Ridley sea turtle, and ocean sunfish!

What a special day we had – our first humpbacks of the season. The day was sunny, breezy, and chilly enough in the shade to make most of us wear sweatshirts, in other words a welcomed relief from the heat and humidity. We heard reports of whales off the Nappeague stretch, as well as further offshore. The NE winds helped us decide to head westward and we found whales off Ditch Plains. We first encountered a really small humpback, perhaps a calf or yearling. It was busy with searching for food on extremely long submersions. Later a larger humpback appeared and we stayed with it long enough to get excellent fluke shots and see some typical humpback behaviors. As we followed this whale to eastward for several miles, while doing so we had a brief encounter with a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle and an ocean sunfish. A nice day in every way!

2 Humpback whales
1 Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle
1 ocean sunfish
 

PHOTOS

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Finback whale! 1st of this season, and another ocean sunfish

We left on a warm afternoon, looking forward to relief from the heat and to find whales. Both were accomplished. As soon as we got past Montauk lighthouse, we felt relief from the stifling heat on land. We had reports of whales inshore around Montauk and Cap’t. Dave saw a whale in the morning right where we had seen one on Sunday. The hazy fog and limited visibility made our task difficult. We eventually decided to head offshore into areas with more visibility.  There we were able to find our 1st fin whale of 2019, a young (no more than 40’ long)  and hungry one.

It was spending 9-13 minutes down feeding at 60-80 feet beneath the surface.  We got great views and stayed with this whale until it was time to head back in.  we came back late, but it was worth it.

1 fin whale
1 ocean sunfish
20 Wilson’s storm petrels
1 Great shearwater

2 Cory's shearwaters

PHOTOS

Friday, July 12, 2019

Minke Whale on a Beautiful Day

We left Montauk harbor today with beautiful blue skies and good visibility to search for whales and had just enough of a swell to give the passengers an exciting "ride". We cruised along the south shore of Montauk and enjoyed great views of the bluffs and hills. As usual we saw some pelagic seabirds, either skimming the waters or diving for fish and although we were several miles offshore we also had many butterflies fly past the ship.

We then came upon a Minke whale, about 5 miles south of Montauk town. It surfaced several times in a few locations around the boat. Since there were patches of small fish under the ship we assume it was actively feeding. After leaving that whale we continued to cruise towards the southeast towards where we had recently seen whales, but had no luck with for the rest of this day.

Totals:
1 minke whale
1 ocean sunfish
10 Wilson's storm petrels
4 Great shearwater
4 Cory's shearwaters


PHOTOS

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Humpbacks Galore! Lunge-feeding, breaching, flipper slapping, and more

Our first multiple humpback trip. Once again, we escaped the heat on land to find whales in water that was comfortably in the mid to upper 60's. We began looking as soon as we traveled past Montauk light. Within a few minutes we found our first of 4 humpbacks. This one was intent on long feeding fives of prey near the surface and traveling due east without changing course. We got some nice views and ID photos and headed west to find more. Did we ever.

We found one humpback lunge-feeding on bunker (Atlantic menhaden) with an ocasional breach thrown in, as usual - spectacular to observe and hard to capture. we stayed with this animal for quite some time. This humpback was oblivious to us and once lunge-fed within a foot or two of our port bow.

Eventually we needed to head back, but were stopped when we encounterd 2 humpbacks logging (resting at the surface) together. At first, from afar we thought it might be a mom and calf, but these animals were almost the same size (one just slightly larger) - so not a cow/calf pair, but clearly an associated pair. One of the pair rolled over and flipper slapped for a bit. What a great trip - so many typical humpback behaviors, and so many people on board who had never seen a whale, let along 4 humpback whales, a blue shark, and an ocean sunfish.

Totals:
4 humpback whales
1 blue shark
1 ocean sunfish
2 Wilson's storm petrels

PHOTOS

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

 

Well, it was bound to happen. After 29 consecutive trips with whales or dolphins since July 2017, we were unable to find them today. The haze and occasional limited visibility made it difficult to spot then from a distance. We covered 45 nautical miles in our search but no whales or dolphins. There was bait, bunker, and a few pelagic birds, even an unidentified shark, and an ocean sunfish, but no cetaceans. We will try again on Friday 7/19/19.

One plus was the cool sea surface temperatures that kept us in sweatshirts, while folks were sweltering on land. Another plus was seeing a submarine heading out to sea.

Totals:
1 unidentified shark
1 ocean sunfish
11 Wilson's storm petrels

Friday, July 19, 2019

Back with the Whales!

We are back on track! found bottlenose dolphins and fin whales!!

Today we left Montauk with clearing skies and a cool breeze. We traveled south and within an hour saw some splashes in front of us. This turned out to be a group of dolphins. These were the first bottlenose dolphins we have seen this year and they crossed right in front of our bow. The group stayed very tightly together as they moved around the boat, sometimes "porposing" out of the water. We stayed with them for some time before moving onward.

After another 45 minutes we spotted our first whale; a large fin whale. Fin whales are the second largest of the whales and second largest animal on the planet. We watched it as it continually dove down (we assume to feed on the thick bands of small baitfish under the boat) and surfaced with that long conical blow so characteristic of fin whales.
We had a birding group with us today and we were pleased they were able to see several pelagic bird species that can only be seen at sea, including 3 different shearwater species gliding along just above the waves.

After proceeding south from Montauk we came upon 2 more fin whales, again feeding through thick bands of baitfish, about 50 feet below the surface. We finished our day cruising back along the south shore, close in to the cliffs and bluffs, before rounding the point and returning to Montauk.

 

Totals:
5 bottlenose dolphins
3 finback whales 
12 Wilson's storm petrels
2 Great shearwaters
4 Cory's shearwaters
1 Sooty shearwater

 

PHOTOS

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Humpback action!

Once again we headed out to find whales, and as soon as we got past Montauk Lighthouse and onto the Atlantic Ocean, we were out of the heat! Sea surface temperatures were in the upper 60’s, a welcome relief. 

We headed west towards where humpbacks had been for the past few days and in a short while found one. This 40’ (-13 m) whale, probably weighed 45,000 lbs (-20 metric tons), and was logging (resting at the surface) just as it had done one week earlier. We spent some time with this whale be heading further west. At the Napeague Stretch, we headed offshore for a few miles, then began heading eastward. We saw a whale a few miles ahead, got up to it; it was the same whale we’d seen logging. Not logging now! This whale was doing “tail throws.” Over and over, we lost count at about 15 times. What an amazing site for all of us. We eventually left the whale and headed home.

Totals:
1 humpback whale
Herring Gulls
Great Black-backed Gulls
Common terns
~30 plovers (unknown species) in 2 groups flying southwest about 2 miles from shore

PHOTOS

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

100 bottlenose dolphins to start, humpback and more bottlenose to end!

When we start our whale watch trip with unlimited visibility on sunny dry afternoon, we have great expectations. We hadn’t even gotten past the Lighthouse when we found a massive aggregation of inshore bottlenose dolphins – over 100! We watched and followed as they were chasing their prey, driving them into tight circles and then diving. Adults, juveniles, and new born calves were all around us. What a beautiful sight.

We left them to continue their journey and ours, and headed towards where we had been seeing humpbacks whales for the past few weeks. We found a good sized humpback and stayed with it, observed it, photographed its dorsal fin and flukes for ID purposes. We were in neutral and ready to leave but the whale had other plans, it decided to swim right up next to us, along the port sight, then under us, and come back on the starboard side. Needless to say, we couldn’t move until the whale moved away. Nobody complained.

We headed a bit further offshore and began to encounter pelagic birds, rafts of Cory’s shearwaters, a few Great shearwaters, and a few aggregations of Wilson’s storm petrels too. Shortly thereafter we found a pair of whales swimming together. As we found a few weeks ago, these whales, staying right next to each other were not mom and calf, as you might expect, but of similar size (about 36 feet (11 meters). We were able to stay with them for quite some time and got great photos, videos, and recollections. Again, almost nobody on board had seen whales or dolphins before and were just as happy as can be.

Totals:

115 Bottlenose dolphins
3 humpback whales
25 Cory’s shearwaters
2 Great shearwaters
10 Wilson’s storm petrels
1 immature Northern gannet

PHOTOS

Friday, July 26, 2019

Bottlenose dolphins, Minke whale, and Finback whale!

Today's CRESLI/Viking Fleet whale watch left Montauk Harbor with clear blue skies and calm seas. Cruising for less than an hour southeast of Montauk we came upon 2 groups of dolphins. There were about 15 bottlenose dolphins all told and we watched them for 45 minutes as they socialized around the boat. These dolphins all were side by side as they put on an energetic display. They were splashing, spy-hopping, "lob-tailing" and did back flips in the water. Their behavior was all about social bonding and perhaps establishing dominance within the group. Our passengers took some great photos of the dolphins with the cliffs of Montauk in the background.
We decided to move on and went further offshore. We continued to pass many "baitballs" of small fish the whales like to eat; menhanden at the surface, being pursued by larger fish. Losing sight of land we came upon 2 whales of 2 different species. Both a minke whale and a fin whale were feeding in the area. At first they were hard to follow as they came up for a quick breath and immediately went down to feed on the very thick schools of small fish. We were patient and were rewarded with some good looks at the fin whale. About 50 feet long, it began to stay on the surface and moved slowly along as it performed a series of several blows. We watched it for several of these series fairly close. The whale finally came up very close and headed directly for our boat. It was right at our stern when it made a final blow that rose above us and then dove underneath the boat for a spectacular "final good-bye"!

Totals 
15 Bottlenose Dolphins
1 Fin Whale
1 Minke whale
1 Ocean Sunfish
5 Wilson Storm Petrels
30 Common Terns
20 Black Backed Gull

PHOTOS

Sunday, July, 28, 2019

Bottlenose dolphins to start; humpback to end

We had a long trip today with a sold out boat. We escaped the heat right away as we turned east at the jetty. Found 2 small groups of Bottlenose dolphins and a small ocean sunfish just west of the Lighthouse. We search nearshore and offshore, didn’t find much else until we began to get head back toward Montauk. At 6:30 we saw something flash off in the distance and the blow of a humpback about 2 miles ahead of us. It was doing inverted lob-tailing, partial breaching, tails throws, etc. and as we got closer a small fishing boat ran super-fast right to the whale, stopped way too close. The whale reacted by diving and tail-throwing once – then took off to the southwest, with 5-6 minute down times and just surfacing a few blows each time and heading away. Had that vessel not harassed the whale, it would have continued its behaviors. It was spectacular to see this active whale, but to see it chased down by those jerks in the small boat was upsetting to all. All-in-all, a long but successful trip. Even though we got back at 8:10 PM, people loved it. BOATERS, REMEMBER TO NEVER CHASE DOWN WHALES! GIVE WHALES THEIR SPACE!


Totals 
10 Bottlenose Dolphins
1 Humpback Whale
1 Ocean Sunfish
3 Wilson Storm Petrels
1 Great Shearwater
Common Terns
Great Black-Backed Gulls
Herring Gulls

PHOTOS

Wednesday, July, 31, 2019

3 Humpbacks, pod of bottlenose dolphins, and a minke whale!!

Once again, we left the sweltering heat and cooled off almost immediately after leaving the harbor (sea surface temperatures have been in the upper 60's to low 70's for a while). We headed towards an area where dolphins had been seen earlier, but they had move on, as nomadic dolphins almost always do. We then headed off towards one of our known whale feeding areas, and there we encountered 2 large humpbacks swimming, diving, and obviously feeding together, we also see a small pod of bottlenose dolphins. We see a third humpback. The 3rd whale heads North and we stay with the pair. Their prey are in bands from the surface to 50' below, and they're spending feeding below and occasionally defecating at the surface. One of the whales is a known whale from the Gulf of Maine, Komodo, the 2007 calf of Rune, the other remains to be identified. We headed in search of the 3rd humpback but were unsuccessful but eventually found a minke whale, just before heading back to the dock. An amazing time for everyone.



Totals 
15 Bottlenose Dolphins
3 Humpback Whales
1 Minke Whale
5 Wilson Storm Petrels
PHOTOS

Sunday, August 4, 2019

Whale Trifecta! 2 Minke whales, 5 humpback whales (including a mom and calf), and a finback whale! 8 whales in all!

What do you get when you have unlimited visibility, flat seas, and good eyes? Lots of whales. Shortly after heading out past the Lighthouse, we spot our first whale, a minke whale. They are relative small baleen whales and this one was not only small, but also entangled in fishing gear. The gear was loosely wrapped, but still obviously having an effect. The Coast Guard was notified, they in turn notified the Center for Coastal Studies
Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team. CRESLI sent photos and all folks are asked to keep an eye out (seehttps://drartiek-cresli.smugmug.com/CRESLI-2019-Whale-Watches/2019-08-04-Montauk-Whale-Watch/i-VsXTmxz/A for a photo). All too sad to see, but we were glad to help.

We continued on our way and found our first of 5 humpbacks about 30 minutes later. We began to see blows in many directions and were ultimately able get close to photograph others. Very nice to see our first mom and calf of this summer. As the day progressed were saw more, including the same tail-throwing whale that we’d seen on 7/14 and 7/21, and it threw its tail once this trip too. The whales were busy eating and we were able to get a quick glimpse of a fast moving finback and another minke. When we headed back in, we looked behind us and found blows all over – I guess we know where to go on Wednesday


Totals:
2 Minke Whales
1 Finback Whale
5 Humpback Whales
5 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
1 Immature Northern Gannet

PHOTOS

Wednesday, August 07, 2019

Breaching Humpbacks, Minkes, and a few Great shearwaters and a mature Northern gannet!

Another beautiful day on the water with whales, what more can you want? Our minkes were “stinky” and avoided being photographed, but were seen none-the-less. Our humpbacks showed us most of their repertoire of aerial behaviors. Our first pair of humpbacks included one whale (MN.CRESLI.2019.07.14-04) that’s been seen by us for the past 4 weeks, each time in close association (swimming synchronously and within a body width of the other whale) with a different humpback. Interesting! At one point MN.CRESLI.2019.07.14-04 and MN.CRESLI.2019.08.07-01 breached together, not 100’ in front of us, and a few seconds later, MN.CRESLI.2019.08.07-01 breached by itself. WOW. We left those whales and traveled our searching pattern, finding whales a few miles away- another pair? Yes, but - there’s MN.CRESLI.2019.08.07-02 with MN.CRESLI.2019.07.14-04. Incredible – another associated pair that includes MN.CRESLI.2019.07.14-04. That’s some gregarious whale.


Totals:
3 Humpback whales
2 Minke whales
2 Great Shearwaters
1 Mature Northern Gannet


PHOTOS

Friday August 9, 2019

Whales and Dolphins Too... Again!

The CRESLI/Viking Fleet whale watch left Montauk on a beautiful day with blue skies and unlimited viability. We were only a mile south of the lighthouse when we saw our first blow and came upon our first whale. It was a young humpback whale and we followed it for almost an hour as it remained in the area. The passengers got some nice photos of the whale with the cliffs of Montauk in the background.

Our vessel, the Viking Starship, then proceeded to the west along the coast and then turned south, away from Long Island. We started to see many schools of bait fish at the surface- just what our whales are looking to find. After a short cruise we suddenly came upon 2 whales and a pod of dolphins. The dolphins were bottlenose and the whales were more humpbacks. The pod of 8 dolphins was moving around the area with speed and sometimes leaping from the water. One of the whales did some tail slapping which made large splashes and was probably done to make a sound to communicate with others.
We spent a couple of hours in the area and were treated to many "down dives" with one humpback showing us its flukes and letting us take some great identification photos for our research. One whale also lifted its head up out of the water for a nice view.
As we started to make our way back to harbor we saw another pod of bottlenose dolphins, about 10 this time, and we watched them too. This group had several very young animals and they were also tail slapping in unison. Sadly our time at sea was up and we had to leave the dolphins and head back to Montauk.


Totals:
3 Humpback Whales
18 Bottlenose Dolphins
2 Great Shearwaters

PHOTOS

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Finback whales and humpback whales

A little sea mist on the horizon had everyone on board the Viking Starship becoming a spotter. Captain Dave began his search East of Montauk and we were soon rewarded with a large Finback whale feeding. A beautiful cone-shaped blow and the incredible power of this marine mammal enchanted everyone on board. Next we found a 2 Humpback whales feeding and got a fabulous tail wave. This is a whale we have seen before. We also managed to see a Blue Shark that was feeding near the Humpback whales. As we continued our search we were able to see a few Minke whales nearer the Montauk Lighthouse. We had reports of a cow-calf pair of Minkes, but were unable to confirm. Birds of note today included A Cory's Shearwater and a number of Wilson's Storm Petrels dancing on the waves and surface feeding


PHOTOS

Friday, August 16, 2019

A Humpback, a Minke and a Fin Whale...

 

It was a good day for a whale watch with great visibility and clearing skies as the CRESLI/Viking Fleet whale watch left Montauk harbor. After some time we spotted a tall blow in the distance. As we closed we saw it was a fin whale. This lone animal was about 40 feet in length, not large for these whales. It remained in this one area with a regular series of 4 surface breaths and then dives down, most likely to feed on the small fish our sonar saw close to the bottom. We got some nice looks at this animal as we stayed with it for some time. After continuing our search we discovered another species of whale, a young humpback. It was swimming slowly at the surface, sometimes "logging", and we all got some nice looks. As we continued on our search we saw a breach in the distance as a whale leapt from the water and so the boat went to investigate. This turned out to be a Minke whale, the smallest of the rorqual whales. After another trip where we hit the 3 species "whale trifecta" we headed back to harbor.


Totals
1 Humpback Whale
1 Minke Whale
1 Fin Whale
13 Wilson Storm Petrels


PHOTOS

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Spectacular Humpback Whale Breaching

We left Montauk today with clearing skies and very calm seas. There was a report of a humpback whale a short distance from Montauk Point and we went looking for that whale first. After 30 minutes it proved easy to see as the humpback was breaching in the distance and creating huge white splashes of water. We approached this young animal and were treated to several bouts of breaching. It lunged its entire body length out of the water over and over - for a remarkable 30 plus breaches. In between breaching (and delighting the passengers) the whale stayed lounging on the surface and continually "flipper-slapped" the water, creating a sharp "crack" sound with each hit. 
After spending some time with this charismatic whale we continued our journey and spotted a minke whale close in front of our boat. We came upon a few other humpback whales, one after the other, saw another breach, and spent some time with those whales.
Suddenly 2 bottlenose dolphins swam up to the boat, with one leaping or "porposing" out of the water. We were running out of time, after such a full day, and headed back to Montauk, with a brief look at yet another humpback whale along the way.


Totals
4 Humpback Whales
2 Minke Whales
2 Bottlenose Dolphins
1 Sooty Shearwater
1 Wilson Storm Petrel
3 Greater Shearwaters


PHOTOS

Friday, August 23, 2019

A Spectacular Day with the Whales

What can you say about a trip where we saw 11 humpback whales, 2 other whale species and dolphins!
The trip started with cloudy skies and great visibility. We spotted whales agin within an hour of leaving Montauk and then usually had more than one in sight all day. Cruising southeast of Montauk we spotted the blows of humpback whales and watched them making short dives in shallow, 50 foot, water to feed on the baitfish below. 
One humpback made a spectacular, full body, breach and then thrilled the passengers with some flipper slapping for some time.
We continued to see humpbacks throughout the area and then spotted 2 minke whales. One of the minkes popped-up about 10 feet from the boat.
A group of about 15 bottlenose dolphins, the inshore type, played around the boat for awhile, to the delight of the children aboard.
This day ended with whales all around the boat, humpbacks, a fin whale and a minke. After a humpback treated us to some tail slapping on the surface we were out of time and sadly had to head back home.

.

Totals
11 Humpback Whales
15 Bottlenose Dolphins
1 Fin Whale
2 Minke Whales
3 Cory Shearwaters

PHOTOS

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Whales Close to Montauk

What started out as a cloudy and someone rainy trip turned into a productive day of whale watching. After less than an hour we spotted some big splashes in the distance- there was a whale breaching and flipper slapping. Unfortunately by the time we got to the area, with the overcast background, we were unable to find the whale. We continued on our way and suddenly came upon 2 humpback whales and 18 bottlenose dolphin. There was a lot of surface bait fish and the whales were feeding.The dolphins came into our area in 2s and 3s until there was a big group. They swam around the feeding whales for some time and some passengers got some special pictures with a whale and dolphin in the same photo! They showed us some fun behaviors such as leaping or "porpoising" out of the water. A minke whale joined this group and we got a few quick looks.
We continued on and found 2 more humpbacks and more minkes. As we headed back to Montauk several dolphins approached the boat, probably the ones we saw earlier in our trip, coming for one final good-bye.



TOTALS
4 humpback whales
3 minke whales
18 bottlenose dolphins

PHOTOS

Friday, August 30, 2019

A Beautiful Day with Whales all Around

Today was a sunny , beautiful day as we set out again in search of whales. We only had to round Montauk Point and cruise along the south shore for 40 minutes before seeing our first whale blowing. This turned out to be a humpback whale, in very shallow water (50 feet) making shallow feeding dives. The water was literally teeming with giant schools of bait fish, menhaden, at the surface. The whale was only going down for a bit over 2 minutes as it's food was right at the surface.
Within a half hour we spotted several other blows and investigated. We watched these other 4 humpbacks feeding on and off for the rest of the afternoon.
Looking towards the beach we saw a pair of whales moving very closely together. Captain Dave brought the Viking Starship over to them and we were amazed to see they were fin whales- at one and a half miles from the shore, we had never seen this species so close to shore! This pair of medium whales, about 40 feet long, gave us several good looks as they too were feeding on the surface menhaden. Within the hour we saw quite a few other whales, more fins, humpbacks and a couple of minke whales.
The children aboard kept yelling with delight as whales surfaced over and over around the boat. We were running out of time when a humpback whale, as if to wave "good-bye", did a "down dive" and put its tail fluke up in the air before disappearing again.



Totals
7 humpbacks
5 fin whales
1 minke whale


PHOTOS

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Great way to end our season!

Great trip today started with a humpback whale 15 minutes past the lighthouse. Spotted two identified whales while watching this humpback. After leaving humpback whale we came across 2 Finback whales. Approximately 12 bottlenose dolphins joined the two Finback whales for a brief time. After leaving the Finback whales we came across our second humpback whale fluking several times. This whale also gave us some flipper slapping which everyone enjoyed. We continued our search for more marine life to find blowes off in the distance from to different whales. Unfortunately unable to identify the whales as they disappeared as we approached.



Totals: 
2 Humpback Whales
2 Finback whales
4 unidentified whales 
12 bottlenose dolphins


PHOTOS

 


CRESLI/Viking Fleet 2018 Whale Watch Reports

Sunday July 1, 2018

Wow! What a way to start the season! Dolphins and Whales

Our first trip was a success. We had reports and coordinates for hundreds of dolphins and a minke whales sighted this morning and a humpback sighted yesterday. Off we went to find them and we did. The minke was “stinky minke” seen by just a few people. As we continued searching, we found a large aggregation of about 100 short-beaked common dolphins. The aggregation included adults, juveniles, and calves. 

We left the dolphins and headed towards the coordinates for the humpback. We found it about an hour later. Its dorsal fin was partially gone probably due to an entanglement. It was diving often and searching for food. We stayed in the area and the whale consistently came up ¼ to ½ half mile away. Fluke shots were taken for identification and it was a eventually time to leave. We got back to the dock late but everyone was exhilarated and everyone had a wonderful afternoon.


Totals:
~100 short-beaked common dolphins
1 Minke Whale
1 humpback whale
8-10 Great Shearwaters
15-20 Cory’s Shearwaters
 
5-10 Sooty Shearwaters
25-30 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
10 Manx Shearwaters


PHOTOS

Sunday July 8, 2018

3 Species of Whale, 1 Species of Dolphin, and 11 species of Pelagic and Coastal Birds!


What an amazing day on the water. We had reports of whales from Saturday, but we had friends out there and said there weren’t seeing anything. With no information except our 30 year knowledge of whale feeding areas near Montauk, Captain Dave Marmino and Naturalist Dr. Artie Kopelman formulated a plan and headed to an area that has almost always has been productive. Within an hour of passing Montauk Light, we had our first minke whale. Like other minkes, this one was elusive. As we were waiting for the minke to resurface, we saw the blows from a larger whale about 1.5 nautical miles (nm) away. Off we headed to find our second species - humpback whale. The humpback breached about 1 nm ahead of us, we were able to stay with this whale for 40 minutes as it circled, traveled, and dove over a 3.5 nm path . We got great views of the ID patterns on the ventral side of the flukes. From this point we saw the massive blows of a fin whale ½ nm away (our 3rd baleen whale species)! The fin whale was only about 50’ long and had easily seen entanglement scars on its right flank and harder to see shallow propeller scars on its back just in front of its dorsal fin. About ½ mile from the fin whales we saw an aggregation of about 60 short-beaked common dolphins and spent the next 20 mi9nutes being amazed by the dolphins as they rode our bow and swam and porpoised all around. What a day!

Totals:
1 minke whale
1 humpback whale
1 finback whale
60 short-beaked common dolphins
98 Cory's Shearwater
53 Great Shearwater
14 Sooty Shearwater
4 Manx Shearwater
148 Wilson's Storm-Petrel
1 Northern Gannet
8 Double-crested Cormorant
7 Laughing Gull
130 Herring Gull
121 Great Black-backed Gull
Bird totals thanks to Taylor Sturm


PHOTOS

Wednesday July 11, 2018

2 Species of Whale and 5 species of Pelagic Birds!


2018 is starting out right where we left off in 2017, with 100% success in finding whales! A beautiful, yet cool and windy day, with a large swell from a distant ofshore storm, gave us a day with good visibility and really 'tricky' whales. 

We had reports of whales to the east of Block Island, too far for us to do anything but drive out, look for 30 minutes, and drive back.  on our way to Sunday's whales grounds, we got a report of several whales south of Block Island, only about 7 miles from where we were on Sunday.  Off we went. Our first two whales were "stinky" minkes, with just a few of us seeing the whales and their dive times were VERY long. Luckily we saw two whales about 1.5 miles ahead of us, one with characterstic massive finback whale blow, the other was less prominent. We found a large fin whale and a minke feeding in this area several miles south of the Deep Water wind farm. The whales, pelagic birds, and coastal birds were feeding on large quantities of prey from the surface to about 50 feet down.  The whale down times were long, but we did manage to get good photos of the fin whale.

Totals:
3 minke whales
1 finback whale
~65 Wilson's Storm-Petrels
~60 Cory's Shearwaters 
several Scopoli's Shearwaters
~30 Great Shearwaters
4 Sooty Shearwaters
1 Manx Shearwater


PHOTOS

Sunday July 15, 2018

A trip for the ages! 18-20 Humpbacks and 8 fin whales feeding voraciously!

We had reports of whales feeding not far from Montauk Point, so we headed to the area we were in the reports. Less that an hour from the dock we found our first of nearly 30 whales!! Humpbacks and finback were feeding on massive quantities of sand eels. We’re used to seeing bubble feeding humbacks on our trips to the Great South Channel, not necessarily near Montauk, but there they were. In fact, many of the humpbacks were photographed are know members of the Gulf of Maine stock – and obviously aren’t in the GOM. We saw bubble rings, bubble mists, Kick-feeding, and open-mouth surface filtering humpbacks galore. There were breaching and flipper slapping humpbacks too. The fin whales were surface lunging and rolling sideways into concentrations of prey right at the surface. We were surrounded by whales feeding non-stop for 2 hours. An amazing trip!

Totals
18-20 humpback whales
8 finback whales
~100 Wilson’s Storm petrels
~30 Sooty shearwaters
~150 Cory’s shearwaters
~80 Great shearwaters
2 Manx shearwaters


PHOTOS

Wednesday July 18, 2018

Whales, whales, and more whales!

We returned to the area where we found the whales feeding on sand eels on 7/15/18 and the whales, sand eels, and pelagic birds were still there, with new additions! We found 2 minke whales, 4 finback whales, and about 15-20 humpback whales again, feeding voraciously on sand eels. Some of the humpbacks from Sunday were still there including Columbia, Dome, and Reaper, and they were joined by many new ones including W, a whale known to spend sometimes part of the summer in the Bay of Fundy. Why go to Fundy when you can hang out near Montauk and feed-up on tons of sand eels. In our last 2 trips we've photographed 19 different humpbacks including: Columbia Combat Coral Dome Ganesh Reaper W!

Totals
15-20 humpback whales
4 finback whales
2 minke whales
>100 Sooty shearwaters
>100 Cory’s shearwaters
>100 Great shearwaters


In our last 2 trips we've photographed 19 different humpbacks 
including:
Columbia
Combat
Coral
Dome
Ganesh
Glo-Stick
Jigsaw
Multiply
Reaper
Reflection
W


PHOTOS

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

More humpback whales!

It had been a week since we were out last. We wondered whether the stormy weather had affected the prey distribution and whales, but had reports of whales, and Capt. David Marmino had seen whales earlier in the day while fishing. We headed out, and chose a path that would provide the most comfortable conditions when we reached the whale grounds. It was a bouncy ride out, but well worth the effort. It took a few hours of travelling and searching and we found humpback whales again near where we had seen them a few weeks ago. Although we saw blows from about 6 whales, only 2 were close enough to identify – these were whales we had never seen before: an unnamed calf of Photon; and Nile, a grand old dame of the Gulf of Maine Stock of humpbacks. Nile was first seen 31 years ago, and had been seen 5 days earlier on the southern edge of Stellwagen Bank National marine Sanctuary(Massachusetts), 170 miles away swimming around the Cape and Nantucket (34 miles per day). Wow.

Totals:
6 humpback whales
including:
Nile
Unnamed calf of Photon
~200 Cory’s Shearwaters
~80 Great Shearwaters
~50 Sooty Shearwaters
~20 Wilson’s Storm Petrels


PHOTOS

Sunday, July 29, 2018

4 Cetacean species day!

Well we found them again. Finback whales, minke whales, humpback whales, and short-beaked common dolphins. The whales weren’t particularly “cooperative,” spending long times down feeding near the sea floor, but they are there to feed. We found 5 finback whales including 2 mom/calf pairs, 5 humpbacks, 2 minkes whales, and about 150 dolphins. The dolphin rode our bow wake and rode the bow wakes of some of the fin whales. Birders on board were happy to find loads of pelagic birds too.

Totals:
5 finback whale
5 humpback whales
2 minke whales
150 short-beaked common dolphins
125 Cory’s shearwaters 
40 Great shearwaters 
5 Sooty shearwaters 
4 Manx shearwaters 
7 Parasitic jaegers
1 immature Northern gannet


PHOTOS

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

5 species of dolphins and whales!

Another successful Viking Fleet/CRESLI whale watch on the Viking Starship! This time, we were able to find finback whales, minke whales, and humpback whales, as well as bottlenose dolphins and short-beaked common dolphins – 5 different species! The whales were spending long times down feeding near the bottom, the action of the dolphins made up for the relatively uninteresting whale behavior. Porpoising, bow riding, and high jumping happened in the bottlenose dolphins that started our day about ½ hour after passing Montauk Lighthouse. Whales and dolphins kept up busy for the next 3 hours, non-stop, ending with a massive aggregation of common dolphins. Another wonderful trip.

Totals:
2 finback whale
3 humpback whales
3 minke whales
150 Bottlenose dolphins
100 short-beaked common dolphins
75 Cory’s shearwaters 
25 Great shearwaters
2 Manx shearwaters 
1 Parasitic jaeger



PHOTOS

Sunday August 5, 2018

Finback whales and Minke whales

We headed out to check for whales where we’d been seeing them for the past few weeks. It was wonderful to get offshore and away from the heat, and even more wonderful when we found our first of 5 finback whales and 3 minke whales. We found the whales feeding on sand eels near the sea floor and as the sand eels rose in the water column to great densities we found more whales. Ultimately 3 singleton fin whales (40, 60, and 75 feet long, respectively) and one mom/calf pair. Intersperse among these larger baleen whales we found 3 minke whales. We headed back in to search for dolphins that were seen earlier but they were not found. All-in-all a great trip!

Totals
5 finback whales (including 1 mom/calf pair)
2 minke whales
16 Cory’s Shearwater
27 Great Shearwater
1 Sooty Shearwater
12 Double-crested Cormorant
2 Parasitic Jaeger
11 Laughing Gull
42 Herring Gull
25 Great Black-backed Gull
7 Least Tern
122 Common Tern
5 Royal Tern
1 Fish Crow

Bird Count via Arie Gilbert


PHOTOS

Wednesday August 8, 2018

 

7 humpbacks and 1 fin whale!

We found whales again. As usual, when it’s warm on land, we were glad to get offshore, but it was still pretty warm. We didn’t have to go far to find our first whales – 2 humpbacks, a mom and her calf. The mom had been seen by us 1 month earlier about 7 nm further east. She and her calf were our first of 7 humpbacks for the day. These whales were thin and feeding, a must for them this time of year. The calf showed signs of having been entangled, but no gear could be seen, so the calf had also been freed of its entanglement. We continued to find humpbacks whales throughout the trip, including several that were also relatively thin. We got ID photos from most (underside of flukes) and are checking against our catalog for LI, as well as others from NYC, the Gulf of Maine, and Mid-Atlantic. We found an incredibly rare Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle and heard about whales east of our location and headed there to find more humpbacks and a young finback whale. While there, we heard of dolphins in Fort Pond Bay and decided to head in to look for them. We didn’t find the dolphins, but found lots of bait and birds (terns, gulls, and shearwaters). Another amazing trip!

Totals
7 humpback whales
1 finback whale
1 Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle
35 Cory’s shearwaters
5 Great shearwaters
1 Sooty shearwater
1 Manx shearwater
1 Parasitic jaeger
10 Semipalmated plovers


PHOTOS

Wednesday August 15, 2018

 

3 species of whales again!!

We had some reports of whales and headed towards those coordinates, but didn’t find them. Off we went to the areas where we have been successful on previous trips, and once again found whales. A mom and calf fin whale – were amazing to watch. Their grace and beauty were evident and we were privileged to watch the calf nursing. What a beautiful thing to observe. We found a minke whale out here as well.It was eventually time to head back, but we were stopped I our tracks by a small humpback. Shortly thereafter we found a trio of fin whales exactly where we had been searching hours earlier. What an amazing day on the water.

Totals
5 fin whales
1 humpback whale
1 minke whale
15 Great Shearwaters
5 Cory’s Shearwaters
2 Sooty Shearwaters
1 Max Shearwater
1 Wilson’s Storm Petrel

PHOTOS

Wednesday August 22, 2018

 

Crazy Breaching Young Humpback

Our streak of successfully finding whales continues (12 consecutive trips in 2018, 8 in 2017); 122 out of 132 trips since 2009 (92.42%). This trip brought us westward and we found a young humpback breaching like crazy. From afar, we saw 5 breaches - later when nearer this whale, but still about 400 yards away, we watched it breach 18 consecutive times within a 3 minute period. Two whales had been seen in this area for the prior 2 days. Could this young whale wave been using the sounds produced by breaching to send a non-vocal signal to the other? Probably. We stayed with this whale as long as we could, then searched for others to no avail. Still, it was a spectacular trip.

Totals:
1 humpback whale
10 Great Shearwaters
2 Cory's Shearwaters


PHOTOS

Sunday August 26, 2018

Humpbacks, fin whales, and minke whales again

Our 21st consecutive trip with whales started with a breaching humpback near Montauk. This young humpback, like so many others showed signs of entaglement. We headed to another area (about 11 nm out) where we found 2 whales that we believe were fin whales, but couldn't get good enough views to confirm absolutely. On our way back in, we found another breaching, flipper slapping humpback and a minke whale.

Totals
2 humpbacks
2 fin whales
1 minke whale
12 Cory's Shearwaters
1 Scopoli's Shearwater
4 Great Shearwaters


PHOTOS

Wednesday August 29, 2018

Whales throughout the day!

We had another spectacular day. We began the trip by surveying an area SW of Montauk where whales have been consistently spotted. The day started slowly until we spotted several huge bait balls of small fish at the surface. We immediately spotted several minke whales. Typically for minkes they would briefly surface than disappear. A good sized hammerhead shark cruised within an arms length of the boat to the excitement of some of our younger passengers. We saw a few blows in the area and soon a large fin whale crossed directly in front of our bow and treated us to a thrilling view. The activity picked up as several humpback whales of various ages were also feeding in the area and we spent considerable time with them. As we started to return to Montauk we had to stop again as we were treated to 3 humpback whales breaching repeatedly. We finally had to say goodbye and returned to the dock a bit late – Not that any of the happy passengers minded!

TOTALS
6 Minke Whales
1 Fin Whale
5 Humpback Whales
1 Hammerhead Shark
3 Cory's Shearwaters


PHOTOS

Sunday September 2, 2018

 

2 whales, 2 different species!


We had perfect conditions, unlimited visibility, 2 feet seas, and clear skies. We headed towards whales had been seen earlier, but saw none. We headed through the areas where we had been seeing whales all summer and saw none, unfortunately. We began to turn towards Montauk and a minke whale popped up right in front of us. It surfaced a bunch of times and allowed many people to view it, albeit briefly. We continued back towards Montauk and at 6:30, we saw the high billowing blow of a larger whale. We found a 1.5-2-year old humpback that we had seen on 8/8/18 (nearly 1 month earlier and about 5 nautical miles SSW), Scylla’s 2016 calf. We spent a while with this whale, but had to leave – we were late enough as is. On our way back to the dock we were able to see a beautiful sunset. Another successful trip.

Totals
1 minke whale
1 humpback whale
8 Cory’s shearwaters
2 Scopoli’s shearwaters
1 hammerhead shark


PHOTOS


CRESLI/Viking Fleet 2017 Whale Watch

Sunday July 2, 2017

Wow! What a way to start the season!

Things started slowly, with little action until we saw the Ocean Sunfish. Shortly thereafter, we began to see large numbers of shearwaters and petrels and we got a report of whales just 1.5 miles directly ahead of us. We found 5 fin whales there, spreadout over a half a mile, including a mom and calf (our first whales) and 3 others. There was bait on the water from 50-170 feet down. We began to head home and found 3 more fin whales and 1 minke whale. It was an incredible first trip! A perfect day!

Totals:
8 Fin Whales
1 Minke Whale
1 Ocean Sunfish
1 Blue Shark
46 Great Shearwaters
80 Cory’s Shearwaters
25 Sooty Shearwaters
120 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
4 Manx Shearwaters
1 South Polar Skua
1 Black Tern

Bird counts thanks to Anthony Collerton 

PHOTOS

July 9, 2017

Whales, dolphins, sunfish, and a sea turtle. What a day we had! An amazing trip-even better than last week's.

We saw 11 fin whales, 500 dolphins, a loggerhead turtle and lots of action and pelagic birds. We were headed to a spot around 15 nautical miles away but began to find whales closer. Our first whales were a cow/calf pair with the calf logging (sleeping) at the surface and the mother was searching for food. This pair we had seen a week earlier 10 miles to the southwest. The calf was logging (sleeping) just under the surface. After a while with them, we headed further out and found another cow/calf pair that were staying close to each other as we would expect because the calf was small and young, diving together, swimming together. The calf decided to come close and roll over next to us and swim across our bow twice. Mom decided to swim between us and the calf, the calf swam around mom and moved next to us again. We left them to find yet another cow/calf pair and then several other singleton fin whales. These whales were joined with 500 short-beaked common dolphins. All were feeding . One fin whale came up and did a sideways surface feeding lunge. We found and stayed with another cow/calf pair until it was time to head back even though we were surrounded by fin whales in all directions all around us. Everyone had a great day!

Totals:
11 Fin Whales
500 Short Beaked common dolphins
1 Loggerhead turtles
1 Ocean sunfish
300 Great shearwaters
300 Cory’s shearwaters
10 Sooty shearwaters
1 Manx shearwaters
100 Wilson’s storm petrels



Bird counts thanks to Arie Gilbert and Pat Aitken

PHOTOS and VIDEO

July 16, 2017

Humpbacks, bottlenose dolphins, fin whale, and more!

Another great whale watch trip! We started the day with a plan to head about 15 nautical miles from Montauk, where whales had been seen the day before. As we passed Montauk Lighthouse we received a report of dolphins and a whale about 3 miles from where we were. So, we headed there and a few miles later found our first humpback of the 2017 season, a young and active whale. There were about 200 inshore bottlenose dolphins, including many young ones swimming and feeding in the same area. This young whale surprised us all by doing a beautiful full body rotating breach. After 40 minutes and 4 miles with these animals, we headed further offshore to find more whales. Six miles later we found another young humpback, and 15 miles after that, a massive finback whale. Throughout the trip we encountered various fish, from an ocean sunfish to a hammerhead shark. We also found quite a lot of pelagic birds.

Totals:
2 Humpback whales
1 Fin whale
1 Ocean sunfish
1 Hammerhead shark
200 Bottlenose dolphins (inshore population)
15 Cory's shearwaters
10 Great shearwaters
1 Sooty shearwater
300 Wilson's storm petrels
1 Northern Gannet (immature)



PHOTOS

July 23, 2017

4 Humpbacks! We are still at 100% success for 2017!

We didn’t have to go far to find our first whale- right at the edge of town, shortly after turning west at the Lighthouse. It was a large, active humpback. Tail throws, flipper slapping and rolling over tail throws! There was lots of action as it fed on some bunker. Bunker was everywhere and we found 3 other humpback whales over the course of the next few hours from Gurneys to miles off of Ditch Plains. Our last humpback whale was one we had seen 6 nautical miles further south one week earlier. There were more humpbacks seen breaching off in the distance, but we we were unable to spend the time getting to them, There's always next week. 

Totals:
4 Humpbacks
10 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
20 Cory’s Shearwaters
1 Great Shearwater



PHOTOS

August 06, 2017

15 Humpbacks!! 100 Bottlenose Dolphins……


Our streak of finding whales continues. This time, within 40 minutes of leaving the dock and about 10 minutes past Montauk Lighthouse we found the first of our 15 humpbacks! There was bait all over – mackerel, sand eels, and bunker. The first few whales were feeding on sand eels. The last were feeding on bunker. Single whales and mom/calf pairs were seen. Humpbacks breaching, tail throws, and flipper slaps happened. Oh, and loads of bottlenose dolphins too. It was an amazing day with non-stop whales for over 4 hours.

Totals:
15 Humpback Whales
100 Inshore Bottlenose Dolphins
5 Cory’s Shearwaters
2 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
1 Mako shark


PHOTOS

VIDEO

August 13, 2017

Can we find whales in the fog? YES WE CAN!


The trip started out with clear skies and full visibility until some patchy fog rolled in. We had repeats of whales and when we got to the area, the fog lifted and we found our first humpback. Our second humpback showed up next to us as we travelled through foggy areas. We saw one farther off fin slapping, but lost that one in the fog as the near one lured for bunker. Our third humpback also feeding on bunker. When the fog had finally cleared we were able to watch it for a while as it selected dense large bunker patches and avoided smaller ones. A spectacular day again!

Totals:
3 Humpback Whales
22 Great Shearwaters
76 Cory’s Shearwaters
153 Wilson’s Storm Petrels

Bird counts courtesy of Taylor Sturm and Pete Morris

PHOTOS

August 20, 2017

We found whales again! Whales and a turtle.


Shortly after passing the Lighthouse we found our first whale, a young humpback that we hadn't seen before. It stayed near us feeding for some time, totally ignoring our presence. It breached once surprising everyone pleasantly. After a while we left to find others. Our second whale was seen from a mile away breaching and flipper slapping. This one was also new to us. It stopped breaching and began logging (a resting behavior) for quite some time. We eventually left to look for others offshore. Before we left we found a loggerhead turtle. Around 2pm we headed back to the earlier area and found a third humpback also new, and older/larger than the rest. While with this humpback, a minke whale surfaced. It was time to leave, but what a great trip!

Totals:
3 Humpback Whales
1 Minke whale
1 Loggerhead sea turtle
1 Manx Shearwater
5 Great Shearwaters
3 Cory’s Shearwaters
5 Wilson’s Storm Petrels


PHOTOS

August 27, 2017

Mom and calf humpbacks!


A gorgeous day on the water was made even better by finding 3 humpbacks and spending time with 2 of the 3, a mom/calf pair, identified by Dr. Artie Kopelman as Manhattan and her 2017 calf. We first met Manhattan 10 years ago in the Great South Channelas the 2007 calf of Appaloosa. We saw Manhattan again in July and August 2009 off Montauk, just about where we saw her this time.

While we had to go further on this trip we were rewarded with a beautiful pair of humpbacks, synchronized swimming and diving and many tail throws to the calf. These were only surpassed by their close approach to the Viking Star on several occasions. Beautiful to watch. Even though there was another humpback near us we didn’t have time to spend with it. Next Week? 


Totals:
3 Humpback Whales
6 Cory’s Shearwaters
1 Parasitic Jaeger
24 Wilson’s Storm Petrels
3 Red-Necked Phalaropes
2 Black terns
2 Northern Gannets

Bird counts by John Gluth
PHOTOS


 


2016 CRESLI-Viking Whale watch reports

Sunday August 28, 2016

Breaching Whales & Dolphins! Oh, & Sea Turtles too

We found our first whale - a young humpback very shortly after we passed Montauk Point. A few inshore bottlenose dolphins joined this young humpback. We eventually headed further out and found a minke whale. We headed back closser to shore and found a green sea turtle on the way. Then near our first whale area we found more. Another two humpbacks. One was a subadult, the other a juvenile. The last humpback was breaching, flipper slapping, than slapping for nearly 40 minutes - a wonderful show and a nice way to end the trip.

Totals:
3 HUMPBACK WHALES
1 MINKE WHALE
6 INSHORE BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS
1 GREEN SEA TURTLE
1 UNKNOWN TURTLE 
3 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS
2 CORY'S SHEARWATERS
1 GREAT SHEARWATER


Photos

Sunday August 21, 2016

Long trip but no whales. We headed out and covered over 50 nautical miles but had no luck finding whales or dolphins. Even the balls of krill near Montauk Point had nothing feeding on them. We will try again next week.

Totals:
46 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS
3 CORY'S SHEARWATERS
1 GREAT SHEARWATERS
7 RED NECKED PHALAROPES
5 OTHER PHALAROPES

Sunday August 14, 2016


It was a long hot trip, cooler than on land, but hot none the less! We covered over 52 miles, searching inshore and several offshore feeding areas looking for the whales that had been reported 2 days ago in our usual spots. No luck. No whales, no dolphins, no turtles, a few birds and a few sharks.

Totals:
5 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS
2 CORY'S SHEARWATERS
25 GREAT SHEARWATERS
2 BLUE SHARKS

Sunday August 7, 2016

Everywhere we went we found whales!

3 Humpbacks, 2 Fin Whales, 1 Minke.
The humpbacks were close in, near the shore, one on the way out and two on the way in. We also found a new mother/calf fin whale out where we had seen them before. Not may whales, but a nice variety of species.

Totals:
2 FIN WHALES
1 MINKE WHALES
3 HUMPBACK WHALES 
1 LOGGERHEAD TURTLE
25 YOUNG THRESHER SHARKS
50 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS
100 CORY'S SHEARWATERS
350 GREAT SHEARWATERS
5 SOOTY SHEARWATERS



Photos

Sunday July 31, 2016

Utterly Spectacular day again!

We could hear a young child at the bow say "this was the most spectular day of my life". It was a trip to remember. Not just the 12 fin whales, 2 minkes and 40 common dolphins, but one of the 3 cow/calf fin whale pairs put on an amazing "show". They lunge fed and rolled over onto their sides, or upside down over and over again for about 30 minutes. Something that our seasoned (almost 30 years) naturalist (Dr. Artie Kopelman) had never seen before. Wow! Wait! As I write we found a humpback! This is a new humpback for us this year (our 2nd), it is another from the NYC catalog of Gotham Whale, NYC0031, but hasn't made it to the western NY Bight yet this year. What an amazing, spectacular, outrageously productive day.

Totals:
12 FIN WHALES
2 MINKE WHALES
1 HUMPBACK (NYC0031)
40 SHORT-BEAKED COMMON DOLPHINS 
35 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS
15 COREY'S SHEARWATERS
3 GREAT SHEARWATERS
2 SOOTY SHEARWATERS
1 NORTHERN GANNET


PHOTOS
VIDEO

Sunday July 24, 2016

Another Multispecies Day! Humpback & Fin Whales

We started the trip with reports of a humpback near the lighthouse. We found it, a young humpback that had been seen and photographed by Dr. Artie Kopelman in NY Harbor in late June (Gotham Whale Catalog #NYC0040). Later we headed to where we'd seen fin whales previously this year. This time we found them a little closer in. Again mom and calf pairs (2 Pairs) and seven other fin whales. On our way back we found the humpback once more near the lighthouse. As we left it breached behind us.

Totals:
1 HUMPBACK WHALE (NYC0040)
11 FINBACK WHALES
20 CORY'S SHEARWATERS
10 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS 
5 GREAT SHEARWATERS
1 OCEAN SUNFISH


PHOTO SLIDESHOW
Video

Sunday July 17, 2016

Another Banner Day! Whales & Dolphins

We started in fog, but had reports of whales and knew (hoped?) the fog would lift. The fog lifted and whales were found. 8 fin whales were photographed along with a quick view of a minke. The whales were spread over a 2 mile radius. 4 mom/calf pairs of fin whales were great to see. On our way back 120 common dolphins.

Totals:
8 FIN WHALES
1 MINKE WHALE 
120 SHORT-BEAKED COMMON DOLPHINS
12 CORY'S SHEARWATERS
14 WILSON'S STORM PETRELS 
1 MANX SHEARWATER 
2 BLUE SHARKS


PHOTOS
MOBILE APP WITH PHOTOS

Sunday July 10, 2016

SPECTACULAR TRIP!! 2 species of whales and 2 species of dolphins

Today's trip couldn't have been better! We found a leatherback and bottlenose dolphins (60) shortly after passing Montauk Light. Before 11:30am we found our fin whales. We spent time with 5 fin whales (1 singleton & 2 mother/calf pairs). There were 2 minkes and 3 other fin whales in the area. Great views of 5 fin whales were had. As we headed home, we found an aggregation of 120 short-beaked common dolphins. They swam to us and around us, rode our bow, vocalized and gave us a great chance to watch them. Also, tons of birds. 

Totals:
8 Fin whales
2 Minke whales
60 Inshore bottlenose dolphins 
120 Short-beaked common dolphins
 
3 Manx Shearwaters
6 Great Shearwaters 
13 Cory's Shearwaters
177 Wilson's Storm Petrels 
1 Sooty shearwater
1 Leatherback Turtle 
11 Short billed dowitchers

Bird counts thanks to Frank Stetler and John Gluth 

PHOTOS
MOBILE APP WITH PHOTOS

Sunday July 3, 2016

Beautiful day on the water!

It was a beautiful day on the water with some birds, a loggerhead turtle, but no whales or dolphins.

Totals:

8 Manx Shearwaters
2 Great Shearwaters 
10 Cory's Shearwaters
20 Wilson's Storm Petrels 
1 Loggerhead Turtle 
1 Ocean Sunfish

 

 
2015 CRESLI-Viking Whale watch reports


 

 

Sunday July 5, 2015

Whales, Sharks, Portuguese Man-of-Wars and Ocean Sunfish!

What a great way to start the 2015 season. We found an amazingly cooperative young fin whale, who provided great views and photographs while it logged near the surface. A few miles awaywe found a large fin whale (over 70 feet long). This whale was feeding near the bottom and would provide us with great views as it surfaced and rolled to close its mouth. It was a fin whale with distinctive propeller scars and was seen by us last year. We also saw a variety of pelagic birds today including Wilson's Storm Petrels, Great Shearwaters, Cory's Shearwaters, Manx Shearwaters and some sort of phalaropes and a gannet. We saw two hammerhead sharks and one ocean sunfish as well.

Totals:


2 Fin Whales
2 Hammerhead Sharks
1 Ocean Sunfish
40 Wilson's Storm Petrels
20 Phalaropes (unindentified)
10 Great Shearwaters, 
10 Cory's Shearwaters
2 Manx Shearwaters
1 Northern Gannet
Photos
Interactive Map with Photos

 Sunday July 12, 2015

A Motherload of Fin Whales

An hour and a half after leaving the dock, we found our first of 10 fin whales! The whales were spread out over a 3 nautical mile diameter area. Both single individuals and pairs. Some of the whales were feeding near the surface, others were feeding on the prey at the sea floor. It was an amazing day that included at least one whale that had been seen last in 2009.  

Totals:


10 Fin Whales
200 Cory's Shearwaters
100 Great Shearwaters
1 Manx Shearwater
10 Wilson's Storm Petrels

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Whales & Dolphins!

It took a while to get out of the fog - several hours in fact, but we did and we found an aggregation of about 100-120 short-beaked common dolphins and 1 fin whale shortly thereafter. We had headed east to where whales and dolphins had been seen yesterday - 24 miles from the Point, but the fog was everywhere. Eventually, we headed back towards where we had seen whales last week. When we got there, the fog lifted and we found them. The dolphins included many young ones and some newly born. The 60 foot long fin whale was a new one for this year. A long but great trip!

Totals: 

100-120 Common Dolphins 
1 Fin Whale
10 Wilson's Storm Petrels 
45 Cory's Shearwaters 
5 Great Shearwaters
20 Common Terns
20 Forster's Terns
1 Roseatte Tern (near jetty)

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos
Video

Sunday July 26, 2015

OH MY! What an AMAZING day! surrounded by whales and dolphins for 4 hours!

It was a spectacular day. Our first whales were just 9 miles from Montauk Point! These were the first of 18 whales- we found 16 fin whales and 2 minke whales and about 60 common dolphins in a 4 mile diameter. There were lots of mother/ calf pairs of fin whales, some trios as well. Sadly, two of the whales had propeller scars. We also found a loggerhead sea turtle on our way back in. It doesn't get much better than this!!

Totals:
16 fin whales
2 minke whales 
60 short- beaked common dolphins
75 Wilson's storm petrels
12 great shearwaters
50 cory's shearwaters
2 phalaropes (unknown species)
1 loggerhead sea turtle

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos

Sunday, August 2, 2015

 

We found them again! Whales and Dolphins!

What a perfect day to look for whales- perfect visibility and clean crisp skies! We found our first whale about 1 and a half hours after leaving the dock. It was a small fin whale logging at the surface. Shortly after we found our first of 2 pairs of fin whales. The whales spent a long time down, but gave us great views when they came back up. While checking on the whales, a group of common dolphins followed us for a while. A seventh fin whale blew in the distant, but we couldn't find it. 

Totals:

7 Fin whales
1 Minke whale 
20 Short-beaked common dolphins 
30 Great shearwaters 
20 Cory's shearwaters|
50 Wilson's storm petrels

 


Video
 

Sunday August 9, 2015

WILD RIDE WITH A WHALE!


It was a wild ride, but we found a fin whale. It was a small one, about 45-50 long and we were able to spend an hour and a half with it. We all got good views of the whale, even though it was spending 10 minutes on a dive. A wild ride, but well worth it. 

Totals:
1 Fin whale
50 Great shearwaters
10 Cory's shearwaters
50 Wilson's storm petrels


Photos
Interactive Map with photos

Sunday August 16, 2015

Found Whales Again!

It took about an hour longer than usual, but we found a 50-60' fin whale. We stayed with it for over an hour as it moved, dove, surfaced, blew, fed and pooped. We got beautiful views of the whale from both sides before we left.

Totals:

1 Fin Whale
15 Great Shearwaters
5 Cory's Shearwaters
15 Wilson's Storm Petrels
12 Phalaropes (unknown species)


Photos
Interactive map with photos

Sunday, August 23, 2015

HOLY S***, BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS & RIGHT WHALES!

If ever there was a HOLY S*** day on the Viking Fleet/CRESLI whale watch, today was it. Epic, historic and amazing. We began with 100 inshore bottlenose dolphins near the lighthouse, and ended with 2 North Atlantic Right Whales within 5 miles of the point. In nearly 20 years, we've never had right whales on one of our trips. This was special. We had to stay at least 500 yards away at all times, be we got great views and pictures! 

The North Atlantic Right Whales have been identified as follows:
The whale with the small linear scar across the head is #2681, male, born in 1996. The other whale (with the small scar at the top of the right lip) is #2340, male, first sighted in 1993



Totals 
100 Inshore Bottlenose Dolphins
2 North Atlantic Right Whales (NARWC #2340 and #2681)
50 Wilson's Storms Petrels
25 Cory's Shearwaters
10 Great Shearwaters
1 Northern Gannet


Photos
Interactive map with photos

Sunday Aug 30, 2015

We did it again! This time a young humpback whale. Our first of 2015!

It took longer than usual and a different search pattern, but we found a whale. This was a young humpback that surprised us by breaching right in front of us when we were a 1/2 mile away. It breached a few more times before settling down. It was logging and feeding and would fluke occasionally. 

Totals
1 Humpback Whale - young, perhaps a calf
4 Northern Gannets
1 Cory's Shearwater
5 Red Necked Phalaropes


Photos

Interactive Map with Photos

Sunday Sept 6, 2015

Dolphins, Humpback whales and more!

We are proud to say we've had 100% success for our 2015 Whale Watching season!

Our season ended like it began with whales and dolphins! We started out with 100 inshore bottlenose dolphins and we stayed with them for an hour and got some great views. Then off we went to find more- we found a leatherback turtle, then we headed back towards the lighthouse and we found 2 humpback whales! WOW! Thank you to all the great customers and amazing crew from Cresli and the Viking Fleet! We had an AMAZING season!

Totals:

-100 Bottlenose dolphins
-2 Humpback whales
-1 Leatherback turtle
-10 Great shearwaters
-5 Cory's shearwaters
-5 Phalaropes 
-1 Northern gannet


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Sunday June 29, 2014: The whales are here!

Fin whales, humpback whales and dolphins! What a way to start the season!

We started with a sad sight of a dead leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) and hundreds of Wilson's storm petrels (Oceanites oceanicus) feeding on the decaying carcass. It was shortly thereafter that we saw our first group of 20 short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) as we headed towards where we were hearing reports of whales. Soon we saw another group of about 30 common dolphins, then a large group of about 120 of them. WOW!

Later we saw our first whale blows. Two fin whales kept us busy for quite some time. Our third fin whale showed up as we were trying to leave. Eventually we had to leave, but on the way back we passed two more fin whales and one humpback whale. They were two far away to head towards, but were seen none the less.

Here are the totals for our first trip of the 2014 season:
5 Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus)
1 Humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae)
170 Short beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis)
300 Wilson's storm petrels (Oceanites oceanicus)
200 Great shearwaters (Puffinus gravis)
20 Cory's shearwaters (Calonectris diomedia)
1 Sooty shearwater (Puffinus griseus)

Photos


Sunday July 06, 2014: We found them again!

Fin whales, Minke whales and offshore bottlenose dolphins!

It was another amazing trip and a continuation of our phenomenal 100% sighting success since last year! We found "the mother load" of whales about 18 nautical miles from the point. Our first whale was a beautiful minke whale, followed shortly thereafter by a mother/calf pair of fin whales. While observing these, we saw blows all around us- perhaps a total of 12 fin whales. We spent time with the pair, then headed to another fin whale followed the pair to form a trio. We then spent time with another cow/calf pair for a bit. During our movements to observe the whales, we were surprised by a pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins (20). They rode our bow, took off and returned time and again to the delight of everyone on board.

Totals:
12 Fin Whales
20 offshore Bottlenose dolphins
50 Wilson's Storm Petels
40 Great Shearwaters
5 Corey's Shearwaters
1 Sooty Shearwater
100+ Common terns

Photos

Interactive Map with Photos

Video


 

Sunday July 13, 2014: We found them yet again!

Fin whales, Minke Whales, Common dolphins, and more

We were only 8 miles off Montauk Point when Captain Carl spotted the first whale, a lone fin whale traveling SW. We followed it for a while and it proved to be a great introduction to a day of whales and dolphins.

Shortly afterward a pod of 20 short-beaked common dolphins streaked over to our vessel and spent some time bow riding and “porpoising ” alongside the Starship, to the delight of the passengers. The children aboard especially liked seeing the mothers and babies as the pod visited us several times over the course of a half hour.  We continued SE, seeing shearwaters and storm petrels, and stopped to watch the antics of a 4 foot long ocean sunfish alongside the boat.

As we made a long turn back to Montauk we found several other whales actively feeding. The three fin whales included a cow/calf pair and we stopped and observed them for some time. A smaller minke whale was also diving to feed on the scattered pockets of small fish below us. Another (or some of the earlier?) pod of common dolphins joined us too and there was a lot of action around the boat. Sadly our time was up and we headed back to Montauk to disembark a happy group of whale watchers.

Totals
4 Fin Whales
1 Minke Whale
1 Ocean Sunfish
30 Common Dolphins
3 Cory Shearwaters
3 Greater Shearwaters
20 Wilson Storm Petrels

Photos

Interactive map with photos


Sunday July 20, 2014:  EPIC TRIP on the Viking Starship!!

Fin whales, minke whales, bottlenose dolphins & ocean sunfish!

The day started with about 150 bottlenose dolphins just outside jetty and over towards Shagwong. We went offshore to find whales where they had been reported. Our first whales were mother/calf pair of fin whales, then a minke, then we started seeing blows everywhere! There were whales in every direction. We eventually were able to get up and photograph 15 fin whales including 4 calf's with their moms. 2 minke whales, and we also saw an ocean sunfish just before the rain got heavy. What an AMAZING trip!

Totals
15 Fin whales (with many others in the area)
2 Minke whales
150 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
1 Ocean sunfish
100 Wilson's storm petrels
15 Cory's Shearwaters
1 Great Shearwater

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Wednesday July 30, 2014:  Still at 100%

Bottlenose Dolphins, Loggerhead, Leatherbacks, Ocean Sunfish & More!

Our 100% Success at finding cetaceans continues. We found inshore bottlenose dolphins shortly after passing the Lighthouse. A group of 10, tthat joined with joined with 20 others. The group included lots of young dolphins swimming with their moms. We headed out further and found a young loggerhead sea turtle, Later we found flying fish, a hammerhead shark,  a Mola mola (Ocean Sunfish), and a small leatherback passed by us. We found no baleen whales, but had a good trip none the less.  WOW! We found another leatherback near the lighthouse and got great views of it feeding on jellyfish.

Totals
30 Inshore bottlenose dolphins
2 Leatherback turtles
1 Loggerhead sea turtle
1 Hammerhead shark
1 Ocean Sunfish
120 Wilson's storms petrels
50 Greater Shearwaters
10 Corey's Shearwaters!

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Sunday August 3, 2014:  Still at 100%

Humpback whale!

We decide to head west and then south towards some reported sightings. On our way west, we saw a few blows off about 2 miles away. As we turned toward the whale, we saw it do a full body breach - a beautiful sight! We stayed with that whale for some time. It was busy feeding at the bottom, with 5-7 minute down times. It fluked just a few times, but gave us some nice views anyway. After a while we decided to move on search for others. The ride was fun, kids were having a ball on the rolls and dips. All was fine, until the rain, which kept getting stronger as we searched. No more whales, but lots of happy and wet passengers. 

Totals:
1 Humpback whale
40 Wilson's storm petrels
12 Cory's shearwaters
2 Great shearwaters
1 shark (unknown species)

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Wednesday August 6, 2014:  We did it again! Whales!!

Minke and fin whales

Our 100% Success at finding cetaceans continues. We started the day finding a very elusive minke whale- a real 'Stinky' minke that dove and disappeared as we approached. We continued to search and were rewarded by finding a large fin whale south & east of Block Island. This whale provided us with great opportunities to see both right & left side, as well as its head.The 70 foot female fin whale was one we saw last year with a calf. This year she is was back again.

Totals
1 Minke Whale
1 Fin Whale
30 Wilson's Storm Petrels
7 Cory's Shearwaters
6 Red-necked Phalaropes


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Sunday August 10, 2014:  Yes!!! fin whales!!!

3 new fin whales

We headed east towards where we had seen whales on Wednesday and where colleagues had seen whales yesterday. As we headed a little over half way there we saw our first blows. A small fin whale was ahead of us- then a larger fin whale blow behind us! This was a mother/ calf pair. They eventually joined each other and surfaced near us when a third fin whale joined the pair. The 3 whales stayed together briefly then seperated. We were able to spend time with each of the 3 whales. As we headed back we encountered a hammerhead shark that gave us great views. It had a hook in its mouth, either it had been caught and released or broke free. In any event, it seemed to be doing okay. 

Totals:

3 Fin Whales
1 Hammerhead shark
1 Ocean Sunfish
10 Wilson's Storm Petrels
50 Cory's Shearwaters


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Sunday August 17, 2014:    Another Spectacular Day!

Fin whales, Minke whales, Leatherback sea turtles and Common dolphins.

We started in fog but it cleared as we approached Montauk Lighthouse. We headed east towards where whales had been spotted yesterday. On the way we found 2 groups of common dolphins, one with 10 individuals, the other with 15. We also found three leatherback turtles on the way to the whales. We found two fin whales SE of Block Island. One of the two had propeller scars and had been seen by us 10 days prior, while the other had been seen by us last year just 12 miles SW of Montauk. These whales provided us with great looks & data. We eventually left them to see a massive aggregation of about 120 common dolphins.

Totals 
2 Fin Whales
2 Minke Whales
145 Common Dolphins
3 Leatherback Sea Turtles
5 Wilson Storm Petrels
3 Cory's Shearwaters
1 Manx Shearwater
 

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Wednesday August 20, 2014:    Whales and dolphins!!!

8 Fin Whales, 2 Minke Whales, 20 Common Dolphins!

Today we had reports of fin whales far to the east and others closer to the west and south. We headed south and found a group of about 10 short-beaked common dolphins just after 11am. We stayed with them for a while and left in search of larger cetaceans. It took a few more hours but we eventually found the fin whales- first one, then a pair, then more and more until we encountered 8 fin whales and 1 minke whale. There was lots of food in the waters, hence the whales were busy feeding, as were a group of about 10-12 common dolphins. A long day, but successful! We are still at 100% success!

Totals:

8 fin whales
2 minke whales
20 short-beaked common dolphins 
1 unidentified sea turtle
80 Cory's shearwaters
5 Great shearwaters
1 Parasitic jaeger
2 Wilson's storm petrels. 


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Sunday August 24, 2014:    What an amazing trip!

12 Fin Whales and 3 Minke Whales

It took a while to get to the whale grounds, but it was well worth the wait! Fin whales and minkes were everywhere. We saw individual fin whales, pairs and trios all feeding (along with minkes) on massive quantities of prey. The fin whales were very active, engaged in surface lunges, rolling over and circle feeding. At points, we were surrounded by whales. As we headed home, we encountered one more pair of fin whales. One of the pair dove and lifted its fluke- a behavior rarely seen and we were lucky enough to see and photograph it!

Totals:

12 Fin Whales
3 Minke Whales
20 Cory's shearwaters
3 Great shearwaters
5 Wilson's storm petrels 


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos


Wednesday August 27, 2014: A HUGE sucess

3 Fin Whales

We departed Montauk and travelled 20 miles offshore. Immediately about 2000 feet off the lighthouse we spotted juvenile false albacore tuna leaping on bait. 

Once we got further offshore, into the remnants of the warm-core eddies of the Gulf Stream, it didn't take long to see our first blow. As we got closer we found two massive adult Finback Whales and one juvenile. We rode along side as they moved east for a good 30 minutes observing what looked like two animals that were as long as the Starship itself!! The whales were lit up in the blue water and the picture opportunity was just outstanding.

On the ride home we briefly saw a Mola mola and some more bird life

Total
3 fin whales
10 Cory's shearwaters
14 Great shearwaters
6 Wilson's Storm Petrels
Mola mola, 
several flying fish


 

Monday September 1, 2014

Our 2014 Whale watching season ended today. We were unable to find any whales or dolphins today for the first time in 30 consecutive local trips since July 29, 2012. Ah well. This season, like the last, was spectacular. Our local trips brought us in contact wth fin whales, minke whales, humpback whales, short-beaked common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins (inshore and offshore types), leatherback turtles, loggerhead turtles, and Kemp's ridley turtles. 


Totals
1 Great shearwater
6 Wilson's Storm Petrels


 

 2013 CRESLI-Viking Whale watch reports

Map of 2013 sightings with representative photos and videos

 

Sunday July 7, 2013

It's an ALL-STAR season opener!

A spectacular line-up: whales, dolphins, turtles and pelagic birds. Our day started off with a spectacular view of nearly 1000 common dolphins. The large super- aggregation was spotted at 11am. We stayed with them for quite some time, then headed on. We next encountered loggerhead turtles (2) and eventually turned back from 24 miles out. We found 2 large fin whales feeding fast south of where the dolphins had been. We were able to get great views of the two and saw another about 1/2 mile away. What a great way to start! We will have tons of photos for you on Monday!

Totals:
1000 Common Dolphins 
3 Fin Whales
2 Loggerhead Turtles
500 Great Shearwaters
85 Sooty Shearwaters
30 Cory's Shearwaters
2 Pomarine Jaegers
1 Unidentified Jaeger
1 Manx Shearwater
2 Wilson's Storm Petrels


Photos

Interactive Map with Photos

Video

Sunday July 14th 2013,

Amazing Trip Once Again!

Fin whales, dolphins, loggerhead turtles, pelagic birds!

Our second trip was another winner. We cleared through the fog and found what we were looking for just where we thought they would be. 8-10 fin whales, including 3 mother/calf pairs were feeding and resting, feeding again, same surface and right next to us with their mouths full of food and water, and their throats expanded. We also found 60 dolphins and 2 loggerheads with the whales. Birders on board were also happy to see hundreds of Cory's and Greater Shearwaters, about 25 Sooty Shearwaters and 5 Storm Petrels. So come on out with us next week!


Totals:
8-10 Fin Whales
60 Dolphins
2 Loggerhead Turtles
500 Great Shearwaters
200 Cory's Shearwaters
50 Sooty Shearwaters
12 Storm Petrels
5 Portuguese Man-of-War 


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos
Video

Sunday July 21, 2013

EPIC TRIP!

It was an utterly amazing trip! The BEST IN 13 YEARS!

Fin whales, humpback whales, minke whales and common dolphins galore. We sae our first dolphins only about 7 miles out and our first whales 9 miles out. It started with common dolphins and then 2 humpbacks, then we hit the motherload. Fin whales, humpbacks, minkes and dolphins EVERYWHERE WE TURNED! Bubble feeding humpbackslunge feeding fin whales, humpbacks doing breeches, tail slaps, flipper slap. Rolling fin whales, jumping dolphins, even saw some flying fish and mahi mahi. The bird life was also spectacular and everyone was happy!

Totals:
25 Fin Whales
12 Humpback Whales
2 Minke Whales
600 Common Dolphins
1700 Wilson's Storm Petrels
90 Cory's Shearwaters
26 Sooty Shearwaters
18 Great Shearwaters
5 Manx Shearwaters
5 Brown Pelicans

Photos

Fin whale Video 1
Fin whale Video 2
Humback, Fin whale and dolphin Video

Interactive map with photos

Sunday July 28, 2013

Whales and Dolphins- AGAIN!

Our amazing year continues! Whales, dolphins and pelagic birds were found again. We left in the fog and when it cleared we had perfect conditions. We found our first fin whale- east of where we had seen them previously. This one was not cooperative and kept staying down for anywhere from 3-12 minutes. Our second fin whale was much larger and also spent long times down. While looking at the second whale we found another super aggregation of common dolphins- easily 300 of them-could be seen chasing after prey and coming over to us also. We spent quite a while with the dolphins and found loads of pelagic birds. There were also 1200 Wilson's storm Petrels.

Totals:
2 Fin Whales
300 Common Dolphins
1200 Wilson's Storm Petrels 
30 Cory's Shearwaters
15 Great Shearwaters
3 Sooty Shearwaters 
1 Sea Turtle (unidentitied)
1 Ocean Sunfish
1 Swordfish


Photos
Interactive Map with Photos
Videos

Sunday August 4, 2013

Our success continues!

WHALES, DOLPHINS, TURTLES, AND PELAGIC BIRDS

2013 continues to be a stellar year with an amazing 100% success rate. Today we found a leatherback while on our way to whale grounds and then began to see whales. Today was a humpback day- seeing 3 different humpbacks spread out over several miles. They were staying down for long periods but gave us good views when back up. While viewing the whales we encountered a small group of common dolphins (about 20), On our way back we once again found a super aggregation of about 600 dolphins- all around us for 1/2 mile then another hundred and another humpback, as well as one more leatherback.

Totals:
4 Humpbacks
720 Common Dolphins
2 Leatherback Sea Turtles
1 Blue Marlin
150 Cory's Shearwaters
55 Great Shearwaters
1 Sooty Shearwater
200 Wilson's Storm Petrels
 

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos
Video

Sunday August 11, 2013

INCREDIBLE TRIP AGAIN: Whales, Dolphins, & Turtles

The amazing 2013 season continues. Today we were treated to many groups of dolphins and whales. We started out with several leatherbacks, then fin whales, then multiple dolphin groups. We were often surrounded by the dolphins, they were feeding, as were the fin whales. On our way in we found hundreds more dolphins and two more fin whales all feeding together with hundreds of shearwaters. Another amazing day on the Viking Starship!

Totals:
6 Fin Whales
550 Dolphins
5 Leatherback Turtles
1 Loggerhead Turtle
150 Cory's Shearwaters
150 Great Shearwaters
7 Sooty Shearwaters
Photos
Interactive Map with Photos

Sunday Aug 18, 2013

DOLPHINS and TURTLES

Our success continues, still at 100% cetacean sighting success. Today's trip took us eastward and led us to a leatherback turtle before finding a pod of 20 common dolphins including some very young ones. We found another large group about 30 minutes later. This second group was an aggregation of about 100 individuals. They were very active with even more young ones. 

Totals:
120 Common Dolphins
1 Leatherback Turtle
75 Cory's Shearwaters
15 Great Shearwaters
2 Sooty Shearwaters 
1 Immature Northern Gannet
PHOTOS
Interactive MAP with photoS

Sunday Aug 25, 2013

DOLPHINS!

We took awhile to find them, but we did, about 100 short-beaked common dolphins. This large aggregation broke up into smaller groups and periodically would return. Amidst the smaller groups we found many dolphins involved in courtship and attempted mating. Single females being chases by 5-7 males at a time. We also saw quite a few young swimming with moms, and loads of juveniles.

Totals:
100 Short Beaked Common Dolphins 
25 Great Shearwaters 
35 Cory's Shearwaters
2 Red Necked Phalaropes 
5 Wilson's Storm Petrels
1 Leatherback Turtle (dead)

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos

Sunday September 1, 2013

Humpback Whale!

It wasn't until we were on our way back that we saw it, a tail throwing young humpback. Over and over again this whale would throw its tail producing massive splashes. We were able to see it well, as it splashed, surfaced, dove and tail breached. An excellent finish to our 2013 season. Our first 100% successful season in the 17 years of CRESLI-Viking Fleet whale watches. Next year let's hope we can do it again!See you next season!

Totals:
1 Humpback Whale
10 Cory's Shearwaters
1 Greater Shearwater
3 Norther Gannets (mature)

Photos
Interactive Map with Photos
Videos soon