2011 01 02 More whales and yet more whales off South Shore |
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Written by Andrew Stevenson | ||||
Elsa, Somers and I set our early to distribute more leaflets asking anyone who sees whales to report them to us at 777-7768 (77-SPOUT) or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
The two girls were enthusiastic leaflet distributors
Somers was an active participant, not only following Elsa, but also depositing her own leaflets The hilly terrain began to take its toll
Somers falls asleep left and then tries to get out of the car when she realizes we are looking at whales that Kelly Winfield spottted off Warwick Long Bay
Somers soon recovers when she sees the whales and she's even happier when she gives away a DVD of "Where the Whales Sing" to Timothy, Tyler and Bryce Card who had been watching the whales for almost two hours
Tim Card phones a friend who is out there fishing but hasn't seen the whales yet. Kelly Winfield behind him calls her friend. Later we went to Gibbs Lighthouse where we spotted two separate whales. Kelly showed up there and identified the whale she had seen soon after mid-day to five in the afternoon. It had hardly moved over five hours. She also saw a whale breach about six miles off shore. Meanwhile Christina Frost-Hartwig saw one or more whales from 2:00 until 5.00 and watched them (it) spout, swim, toss and breach in the waters to the left of, and beyond, the large white buoy off of Grape Bay (the one that marks the waste pipe) and to the right of Mr. Bridges boat mooring. She saw one breach at least 4 times. These whale(s) also stayed in more or less the same area for hours.
I thought Gibbs Lighthouse was closed until I heard Elsa's voice shouting at me from above. She, Somers and Annabel had climbed to the top and were looking for the whales
Somers, Annabel and Elsa at the top of the Lighthouse and Somers trying to put a quarter into the binoculars for a closer look although how she expected to achieve this was beyond me, but not apparently, beyond her expectations. So, once again, I'm left wondering who these whales are and what they are doing. One of them, on its own, was in 70-200 feet of water and blowing every 5-8 minutes and hardly moved its position over six hours. Resting? Singing? I don't believe it was feeding. The whale Christina saw was also in one area for some hours. I would guess its breaching was a communication signal to other whales in the area. As soon as I get a chance I'll see if we can hear the whales singing on the hydrophone although in the past we haven't heard them sing until the migration season in the spring. Odds are, these are primarily female whales. We know from research done in the winter breeding grounds in the Caribbean that the ratio of males to females is 4 to 1 while in the summer feeding grounds the ratio is 1 to 1.
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