Mon Sept 14 – Whale Watching

Another successful trip with 4 different humpback whales spotted! We’ve also added 1 more trip 9/19/26 (10AM-4PM)

Another wonderful nearshore trip on the Viking Star. We stayed relatively close to the shoreline to view juvenile humpback whales feeding on Atlantic Menhaden (AKA bunker). Juvenile humpbacks are those that are under 12 meters (39.37 feet) in length. The arrival of bunker this summer was delayed and the volume of bunker reduced due to overharvesting further south and west. Bunker (Brevoortia tyrannus) is an oily fish that swims in large schools along the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts and is such an important prey species that it is often referred to as the “most important fish in the sea. It had been severely overharvested in the past and once the harvest was constrained (circa 2011), it recovered. This led to a large increase in the numbers of menhaden and juvenile humpback whales along the coast of NY and NJ.

One of the humpbacks we saw was also seen by us 10 days earlier. Another one is known from the Turks and Caicos Islands, part of the mating and calving grounds for the population of humpbacks off the NW Atlantic ocean coastal areas. All of the humpbacks had type 5 fluke patterns (i.e., nearly 100% black) and while we thought that we’d encountered 12 humpbacks over a wide area, upon closer inspection of our ID photos they were determined to be the same 4 whales seen repeatedly.

4 humpback whales

Photos available soon at https://drartiek-cresli.smugmug.com/CRESLI-2026-Whale-Watches/2026-09-14-Montauk-Whale-Watch