New England Whale Watch - Four New Whales And One Resighting

      A few weeks ago, I took my last whale watching trip for the year out of Plymouth, MA.  This trip, like the previous ones, did not disappoint.  Matter of fact, each succeeding trip I took this year was somehow better than the last.  This trip was, however, scant on seabirds.  A nice flock of foraging Manx shearwaters and a lone Leach’s storm-petrel were the only avian highlights.  Dozens of Atlantic white-sided dolphins zipping around the boat made up for the lack of birds, but the success of the day was defined by the whales.  On the day we had somewhere around twentyish humpback whales that included several calves.

I have been on trips with not a single whale to be had, so twenty in a three-plus hour trip is special.  Not only were there multiple whales in sight at any given time, but we had as many as seven giants surface at the same time near the boat.  I had never seen seven whales together at one time.  The only disappointing part of the trip was that my camera was out for repairs, leaving me with only my iPhone to document the day’s sightings.

Seven humpback whales simultaneously surfacing for air exchange.  © S. Weiss

Even with the camera handicap, I still managed to grab a few decent shots of the whales and some of their tails to submit to Happywhale for identification.  About two weeks later I did receive notification that five of the whales I saw were identified.  Four of them were new to me, bringing the total of my identified whales up to 30.  The other whale was a reencounter of one of those 30.

Added to my list of identified humpback whales are Venom, Dome, Mostaza and HW-MN0104931.

Venom is a female that was first sighted In 2010, making her at least 16 years old.  She is known to have birthed four calves: Nematode in 2011, Perpendicular in 2014, Tango in 2018 and HW-MN0102169 in 2020.

Venom.  © S. Weiss
She is at least 16 years old and the mother of four.  Notice that the tip of her fluke on the right side is partially amputated.  She is a survivor of a fishing gear entanglement.

Dome, sex unknown, was first sighted way back in 1991, making it at least 35 years old!

Dome.  © S. Weiss
This humpback whale was first sighted in 1991.

Mostaza is a female that was first sighted in 2009, making her at least 17 years old.  She is a daughter of the famous Salt.  (See Salt’s story at https://coastalstudies.org/our-work/humpback-whale-research/gulf-of-maine/a-humpback-whale-named-salt/).   She has had at least three calves of her own: Toboggan in 2017, Fiddlesticks in 2019 and Migration in 2020.

Mostaza.  © S. Weiss
She is at least 17 years old and the mother of three.

HW-MN0104931, sex unknown, is new to the Happywhale catalog.  This is the first year it has been documented.

HW-MN0104931.  © S. Weiss
There is not much information on this whale as this is the first year it has been recorded.

My reencounter on this trip was Jupiter.  Jupiter, sex unknown, first documented in 2009, making it at least17 years old.  I first encountered Jupiter on September 2, 2023 while on a fishing trip in New York waters.

Left, Jupiter on Oct. 10, 2026 off Plymouth, MA.  Right, Jupiter on Sept. 2, 2023 off New York.  © S. Weiss

I look forward to more identity additions and more reencounters.96


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