Mon Aug 17 – Whale Watching
3 Humpbacks and about 300 NW Atlantic Norther Migratory Common Bottlenose Dolphins
Wednesday August 12, 2020
WOW what a trip!
We had reports of whales around they Midway Buoy and within an hour we found out first 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
Click here for more photos
PHOTOS from the 8/12/2020 trip
