Good afternoon everyone, it’s Danielle back with a weekly update. Our sightings continue to be FINtastic with sightings of both finback and minke whales. I do want to mention though that in the past 2 1/2 weeks we have had 2 trips with no sightings of whales…it’s very uncommon especially for this time of August and also I want to mention that all of the whale watching boats out of St. Andrews work incredibly collaboratively but it’s certainly a reminder that wildlife is indeed WILD.
This week we had an incredible encounter with a curious minke whale who essentially held us hostage, this behaviour is often called “mugging” and is much more common with humpback whales. It lasted more than 20 minutes and something I will always remember.
An incredible encounter with a minke whale – image by DDion
Here are some images of the whales from the past week
fin whale and a seal – image by DDion
minke – image by DDion
large blow of a fin whale – image by DDion
fin whale surfacing – image by DDion
finback – image by DDion
We have also documented TWO mother/calf fin whale pairs in the area, always special to see mom/calf pairs of whales and certainly not something we see every season
the first mom/calf pair we documented for 2025 – image by DDion
the second mom/calf pair, note the differences in the dorsal fins from the first pair – image by DDion
the young calf being playful at the surface while mom was on a longer dive – image by DDion
We had an incredible basking shark sightings this week
basking shark out past the Wolves – image by DDion
And I never want to leave out the seabirds! This week we have documented shearwaters (both sooty and great), northern gannets, PUFFINS, razorbills, murres, terns, Bonaparte’s gulls, juvenile laughing gulls, black-legged kittiwakes and a few jaegers!
Atlantic puffin – image by DDion
diving northern gannet – image by DDion
Thank You for checking in today, as always please LIKE and FOLLOW our Facebook Page for daily updates, pics and video. And check back in next week for more sightings from the catamaran
Cheers,
Danielle
Senior Naturalist
Quoddy Link Marine
Whale and Wildlife Cruises
St. Andrews, New Brunswick
Bay of Fundy
