Tue Aug 25 – Whale Watching
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 male for 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
