Hello everyone, just a quick note on our sightings form the past 2 days. We have had some pretty strong winds here on the Bay of Fundy over the past 2 days from various directions. People ask all of the time if the whales care about the weather…the wind….the sun….the fog….and the answer is always, nope, they really don’t….but it does effect us. The winds can have a huge effect on where we can go and therefore what species of whales we may see. With the strong winds we are usually confined to the more sheltered area of the islands where we are still seeing many finback whales, on some departures up to 15 individuals in a 1 mile radius but for us to see humpbacks we usually have to travel a minimum of 14 miles from St. Andrews. Of course, there are times when humpbacks do come closer to the Islands, this summer we have a number of juveniles as well as one adult that were feeding inshore for a number of weeks but they haven’t been seen inshore in a while. We have recorded Siphon and her calf close to Nancy’s Head, Campobello which can be protected from the winds but they were not there yesterday. This time of season typically have to go off the Wolves and around the Owen Basin and the Grand Manan Chanel to see humpbacks….and because of that we need good sea conditions.
The past 2 days we have been watching finback whales off Bliss and off the entrance to Head Harbour Passage…and on some trips they have been much easier to watch than others (the time of day has no effect either…but the tide does). On yesterday afternoon’s departure there were about 5 finbacks off East Quoddy, they were doing what finbacks can naturally do, staying down for a while and making some big moves when they surfaced. With patience…lots of patience…we were able to get some great looks but with all of the hype of how amazing the 2009 whale watching season has been it was a reminder that wildlife is WILD! It’s certainly not a bad thing, it’s one of the reasons I love my job….whales do what they do…they feed, travel, stay under for 10 minutes at a time…sometimes they breach…and they are on no one’s schedule but their own.
Thanks for checking in today, like I have said before, every trip is different and we can never guarantee what species of whale we will see on a departure, even when it is the best time of our season for whale watching.
It looks like a beautiful day today, I will let you all know this evening how our sightings were,
Cheers,
Danielle
