Body condition, stress and reproductive success.

Funky Fin Whale: Body condition, stress and reproductive success.: Time for a little theory, but I promise to keep it simple. Fat, well fed whales float better than thin, stressed whales because they...

"The Inspector Gadget of the Oceans".

Funky Fin Whale: "The Inspector Gadget of the Oceans".: Meet the "Inspector Gadget of the Oceans" otherwise known as the Little Leonardo W2000-3MPD3GT data logger, a very important tool in our tra...

A whale sized breathalyser!

Here's some interesting technical stuff from Rene's site

Funky Fin Whale: A whale sized breathalyser!: Why would anyone in their right mind want to breathaylse a whale? And what is about that heady cocktail of stale air and water that interest...

Seduced by Meduse (01/09/11)

Dear Meduse,

It has been a real privilege to meet you...thank you for choosing the blue boat over a 'real' mate - Boomerang. I hate to break it to you though, the blue boat will not bear you children which might mean the end of a great line of Meduses. You might have to rethink your strategy and perhaps next time, don't push her away when she curiously approaches your new love interest?

Yours,

A concerned but awe-struck friend.

Head breach! (04/09/11)

Apologies for the shaky quality but we were busy driving around searching for the tag that had just come off Splish and this whale decided to head breach. I was thrilled to capture it on camera - to share. 

Learning to speak whale

My friend Deshan saw this and thought of me. I saw this and thought of you all. Its way better than another blog post about bad weather - which, as you guessed is my current predicament.

Conversational Whale by Emily Arnaut with Monica Cure | Make Your Own Book

Minke-ingdom (01/09/11)

Boat echosounder - orangey-yellow colouration in top 20 m  could indicate presence of food.

The 6am fog was fast-moving and patchy and as the Irene-induced land lubbery was not agreeing with the marine mammals within us we unanimously decided to try our luck - on the water. 

We departed Mingan at 8am and cruised in and out of fog patches in a southwesterly direction towards Banc Parent where we began to see signs of life - porpoises, storm petrels and minkes. A positive sign so we made an approach...initially in the hope of finding something bigger. A quick glance at the boat's echosounder indicated the possible presence of food within the top 20 m - perhaps explaining why the minkes were zipping around. We tried to tag one for half an hour but had to give up the goat because the little critters were far from curious and hard to approach. In general, they are extremely challenging to tag because they move very fast and are so small that opportunities are few. Interestingly, they appear to have a layer of slime that prevents the tag from sticking very well. Thus the whole procedure requires a large quantity of luck.


Although we didn't get a tag on, I managed to get a few photos to share with all of you....my first foray into Minke-ingdom - please enjoy!

Few things to note - the very sickle shaped dorsal fin (compare it to the blue whale's dorsal in the banner of my blog) and the black/grey colouration of the body (most evident in the top photo). Also, its amazing how most of the length of the back, including the dorsal fin and blow holes appears at once when the whale surfaces to breathe - something we never see with the very large blue whale - after all blue whales are about 5 times the size of these little guys!!

You are cordially invited.....

....to the annual, never-ending fog festival!!! Guaranteed fun for the whole family!

Funky Fin Whale: The calm before the storm - "Come in number 755 it...

Funky Fin Whale: The calm before the storm - "Come in number 755 it...: Sunday promised much and didn't let us down. Equipment and personnel took a battering on our way west to Point Ouest and Banc Parent, and ...

The dance of Stalagmite and Tmain (28/08/11)

L-R: Rafal setting off in search of whales; Humpback diving; Humpback fluke; Flipper slapping - you can see Stalagmite's other flipper underwater.

L-R: Top left side of Stalagmite's fluke; Spyhop; Hug me;

Bottom: Perfect ending to a fabulous day.

And so it happened....the ride out to the whales was long and very bumpy but no sooner we found two we found 11. We had a successful tag and were treated to the wonderful dance of Stalagmite and her friend Tmain. They were both very curious and circled our boat (which is apparently unusual for such BIG animals) and displayed a number of behaviours including spyhopping (poking head out of water as if to have a look), flipper slapping (turning onto the side and slapping a flipper repeatedly), tail slapping (launching the whole peduncle out of the water and slapping the water), breaching (launching the whole body out of the water), double breaching (both breaching simultaneously) and rolling (lying on their back and sticking both flippers upwards as if in praise).

What a day...and tomorrow is our day off as we await the arrival of Hurricane Irene.

(P.S: Click on the collage to zoom in)