March 5, 2024
R/V Shearwater
Not all days on the water have clear skies and calm seas. While we usually wait for good conditions to go out and look for right whales, sometimes our cruises take place in less than ideal conditions. On this Tuesday in particular, our team set off on another foggy, overcast morning to complete one of our regular full-bay habitat sampling trips. These trips collect a number of different samples from standardized sites throughout Cape Cod Bay in order to assess the state of several biological and environmental variables. In all of these standardized locations, plankton tows are deployed to examine the food resource, as is studied all season by Christy and Shreya, but additional data is collected during this monthly cruise as well. At some stations, water samples are collected and filtered for eDNA – trying to determine what marine creatures may be present in a particular area via the genetic material left behind in skin cells or mucous. CCS researchers also deploy a benthic grab, or sediment sampler, which collects soil and debris from the seafloor.
While we had hopes for the weather to clear, our visibility was significantly obscured by thick fog which was present all day. In addition to the fog, we also passed through patches of rain and wintery mix, with various forms of precipitation occurring on and off throughout the cruise. The wind and swell also picked up in the afternoon, making for some rocky transits between stations and extra work for Christy, Shreya, and our other researchers as they collected their samples. Due to the weather conditions, I was only able to spot one right whale on this cruise, catching it diving down below the surface while we were stopped at a station in the southern part of the Bay. Later, Christy noted that she was noticing more plankton abundance in this area, providing a likely food source for our lone friend of the day.
As the weather worsened in the afternoon, Shreya and I kept continued to keep an eye on the water. In tricky conditions such as these, it is even more difficult to spot right whales, especially those who may be subsurface feeding or traveling. Even though a large portion of our job is finding right whales, we still were unable to spot any additional whales for the duration of this cruise. With heightened sea states and muddying weather conditions, the importance of safety restrictions such as the speed limit in Cape Cod Bay are particularly heightened. As we returned home to warm up and dry off, I anticipated what we might see on our next fair weathered day.
– Morgan
Aerial Survey
March 13, 2024
We took off from Provincetown at 8:05 am to conduct what could likely be our busiest Cape Cod Bay survey of the season. Uncooperative weather has prevented us from flying since we saw 50 right whales in the bay on February 25th, but there had been many public sightings of right whales in the area over the last two weeks so we were confident that the whales were still here.
We started our transit down the ocean-side of the Cape so we could start our survey in the south when we saw a pair of right whale blows. We had only been in the air for 8 minutes and were already circling right whales! We documented 4 right whales total on the ocean-side of the Cape including EgNo 3460 “Havana” and EgNo 4020 “Nymph”, both of which we had seen in Cape Cod Bay in February. I started to worry that all of the right whales we seen in the bay in February had moved out in the last few days and we would have a quiet survey after all.
Fortunately, those fears proved to be unfounded. We came across right whales on our second trackline in the bay then continued to locate more and more right whales on every line that followed. Almost all 14 of the right whales we located on our 2nd track in the bay were skim feeding, a behavior we were yet to document much of this season. This behavior makes the whales easy to spot as much of their head breaks the surface of the water and suggests that the food they are preying on is particularly close to the surface
As we continued north we never stayed on our tracklines long before breaking to circle right whales. We also came across our colleagues on R/V Shearwater in the northeast bay near a large aggregation of shallow, subsurface feeding right whales. Today they were capturing their own photo-ID documentation as well as collecting samples of the right whale’s food resources. We waved to Morgan, who was on the top deck, but she had her hands full keeping track of the whales in their area.
By the end of the day, we had covered 12 of our 16 tracklines, capturing photographs of 87 individuals over 10 hours of flight time! Roughly half of the individuals we photographed are new for us this season, so it seems like many individual right whales have been arriving in Cape Cod Bay to feed over the last few weeks. It’s hard to believe that were able to see ¼ of the population in a single day and know that there were more animals in the bay that we were unable to get to. Fortunately, it looks like we have some good weather coming up so hopefully we are able to fit in a few more flights and find even more right whales in our local waters.
March 13, 2024
R/V Shearwater
Due to some last-minute weather changes, we were able to get out for two half-day cruises this week! We left the dock soon after midday and were greeted by smooth seas, a gentle breeze and the warmest field day yet this season. This reminder that spring is right around the corner was particularly welcome after our last cold and foggy day on the water, and our team was optimistic that we would have a great day of survey effort. Sure enough, we spotted our first whales of the day not long after passing Long Point Light, which turned out to be a group of three subsurface feeding individuals. These whales were identified as Scarf (#1429), Arrow (#3290), and #1283, engaged in some particularly cool foraging strategies. Arrow and #1283 had coordinated their feeding together, with one swimming in line behind the other filtering through the copepods just below the surface. This was my first time seeing whales in Cape Cod Bay utilize this feeding strategy, up until now the whales I had seen were feeding solo, but it’s commonly observed in larger feeding groups.
With the spring weather comes the food resource turnover in the Bay, meaning there’s a greater abundance of Calanus copepods, AKA the right whales’ food of choice. Finding feeding right whales on our survey days was becoming more and more common, as we learned this particular afternoon. Soon after leaving our first group behind, we came across another pair of subsurface feeding whale known as #3550 and #1270 who were a bit tricky to photograph. They stayed mostly below the surface taking very few breaths in between, so we left them behind after getting the data we needed. We spotted a few more whales up in to our south-southwest and headed off in that direction, only to quickly realize that we were approaching a widespread group of skim feeding whales. After a quick strategy session, we planned to work our way through this “Skim City” and then deploy a number of plankton tows in the area to study the food availability. Some of the city’s residents included #3712, Mantis (#1620), #4143, Goldfish (#4129), #5042, Champagne (#3904), #5194, #4990, and #5104. As we photographed these animals, we heard the tell-tale whirring of a plane engine and soon spotted the aerial team circling nearby, making progress on their own data collection. I made sure to wave to Ryan in the photo seat, but he had his hands full keeping track of all the whales in the area, and they soon moved off to another sighting.
After Christy (our chief scientist) and Shreya (habitat intern) completed their sampling, we moved on from this group and photographed a few other animals feeding in the area. These included Veer (#3060), who we had spotted on a previous cruise, as well as Sebastian (#4650) and #4550, two more familiar faces from a previous SAG and were accompanied by #4304. As the light began to get low and we transited back towards Provincetown, we spotted a solo whale who turned out to be Galileo (#1720), known for the speckles across his face and body that resemble stars. Our last sighting of the day consisted of Veer again, this time with a new whale who we ID’ed as #3298. After snapping some shots of these two, we headed back towards home, admiring the sunset and ready to do it all again tomorrow!
– Morgan
Aerial Survey
March 14, 2024
Happy Pi Day! With high hopes that our co-workers would save a couple slices of pie for us to enjoy after our flight, Amy and I took off at 9am for a survey of Massachusetts Bay. While it can be hard to fly in other areas knowing that there are huge piles of whales right there in Cape Cod Bay, determining species presence in a greater geographical area is arguably just as important.
Right after we took off, we did a loop around Race Point before transiting north to begin our Mass Bay survey. The extra loop did not disappoint, as we found a SAG of two whales, Nymph (#4020) and #3742. After capturing enough photos to identify the two individuals, we carried on our transit north. Not too far from our first track line, I spotted a couple of blows. We lowered our altitude to check them out and discovered 6 fin whales! That was the biggest group of fin whales I had seen all together before, having only heard stories of the large aggregations that can be seen in the area at certain times of the year.
The rest of the Mass Bay survey lines were relatively quiet, with the exception of a couple more fin whales, a couple of minke whales, and a handful of humpback whales scattered about. It was exciting to see so many different species all in one flight. With two lines of Mass Bay left to cover, we decided to land and refuel which would give us more time to spend with any whales we found as we got closer to Cape Cod Bay.
The first line in Cape Cod Bay was surprisingly quiet, but on our next line we had to break the track line to circle and avoid traffic. As we were circling, I spotted a line of heads at the surface. Skim-feeding right whales! We went to check them out, got a few photos, but unfortunately were running low on time and had to hurry back to the airport. It was a nice bit of excitement at the end of a long day. Even better, there was pie waiting for us at the office when we got back!
– Annie
