Exciting results from Operation Calanus!

L-R: Echosounder trace showing ascending and descending whales; Zoomed in view showing food and whales diving out of the food patch!

Rene has very kindly allowed me to post some preliminary results for all of you to enjoy. Simply put - this echosounder data matches the tag data and shows that Calanus was feeding at the bottom - 120 m down. That's where the food is (second figure) so it all makes sense! The temperature here was about 2 degrees Celcius - 14 degrees cooler than at the surface - BIG difference over a small range. The cold water comes courtesy of the Labrador current. I will write another post about the oceanography of the area on a later date so stay tuned.

What's really cool is that the MICS team has noticed that Meduse (the friendly whale you can see at the top right hand corner of the first figure) has raw wounds around his mouth and they suspected that it was because he was feeding on the bottom - these results confirm that - WOO HOOO! Its pretty amazing how we can apply these results to answer some real life questions too.


p.s: if you click on the image it will open larger in a separate tab

En route to see my first true blue whales in Canada!

I am sitting at Sydney airport excitedly awaiting my flight to Canada. I am on my way to see my first 'true' blue whales. As some of you may know, blue whales are either true or pygmy. The latter is a bit of a misnomer because it invokes images of pocket-sized blue whales. However, the pygmy blue whales that are found in the southern Indian Ocean (around Western Australia) and the northern Indian Ocean (around Sri Lanka) are a mere 5 m shorter (about 24m long!) than the 'true' blues of for e.g. the Antarctic. 

I am really excited to have the opportunity to learn new techniques from Rene Swift from the University of St. Andrews and the team at the Mingan Island Cetacean Study - headed by Richard Sears. I wonder whether I will actually be able to tell the size difference between the whales - the pygmy blues are said to be slightly more 'tadpole' shaped, but with animals that only expose a fraction of themselves at a time - I am sure this won't be very obvious. Stay tuned for more excitement on this one....

So I'm flying Perth - Sydney - Vancouver - Montreal - Sept-Iles ... many more hours of travel left!! Here's a map of where I am headed....the Gulf of St. Lawrence - the furthest north I have ever been!

Oh and check out this link while you are at it http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14410355