Whale Watching from Gloucester MA :: Humpback Whales (part one)

Humpback Whales (part one)

Humpback Whales were referred to as "...the most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales... making more white water and gay foam than any other" by Herman Melville in his famous book "Moby Dick". Humpbacks are also probably the favorite whale species to observe for most whale watchers. This is fortunate considering that Humpback Whales are the most commonly sighted species on our whale watching trips! Humpback Whales travel either alone, in pairs, or occasionally in small groups of three to seven animals. Larger aggregations are seen when food is particularly abundant.

Humpback whales start arriving to our area in the late Winter and very early Spring with males and juveniles arriving first, and female whales with new calves arriving last (usually by mid-May). When the Humpback whales arrive they are hungry and ready to begin feeding for up to eighteen hours-a-day, all summer long. Each whale can consume nearly three thousand pounds of fish per day.

But why do they eat so much? It's because these whales haven't eaten a thing for months! Each winter, the population of Humpbacks we see off the New England coast migrate fifteen-hundred miles to the warm, much less productive waters of the Caribbean to mate and give birth to their calves. It is in these warm, relatively desolate waters of the Caribbean that the Humpbacks sing the majority of their elaborate songs for which this species is so famous. For entire time the whales are singing and mating in the Caribbean (November-March) they don't eat and lose up to 25% of their total body weight (or about 20,000lbs of blubber). So it's not surprising that they are so intent upon feeding after returning north to New England.

Feeding Behavior

Feeding behavior is commonly seen on our trips. Humpback whale feeding behavior consists (usually) of the whales blowing huge clouds or rings of bubbles which are thought to confuse and trap small fish inside the column of rising bubbles. Thus small schooling fish such as Sand Lance, Mackerel, or Herring, which are faster swimmers than the Humpbacks, can be concentrated and consumed in mass quantities. This "bubble feeding" behavior is unique to the Humpback whales and has been observed in many Humpback whale populations all around the world.

Interestingly, different populations of Humpbacks exhibit slight variations on this bubble-cloud-method of feeding. In the North Pacific, for example, Humpback whales almost always work in groups to net fish in a hollow ring (or cylinder if viewed beneath the surface) of bubbles. While "bubble rings" are also employed in the North Atlantic, they are much less common than "bubble clouds" (one solid mass of bubbles). Are these feeding behaviors the result of the whales targeting different prey? Is feeding strategy learned when Humpback whales are calves and watch older whales feeding? Could this account for regional variations in feeding strategy?

Consider this: In the past 15 or so years a new feeding strategy has emerged in "our" population Humpback Whales. A method of feeding called "kick-feeding" or "flick-feeding" began with just a few individuals then spread through the population. In the early 1990's, a few individual Humpback whales started pounding the surface of the water with their tails before diving beneath the surface and blowing a bubble cloud. Why they started this behavior no one knows. Perhaps pounding the tail at the surface stuns fish making them easier to catch. What we do know is that kick-feeding is now observed in many, if not most, of the Humpbacks in the southern Gulf of Maine.

While feeding remains the main activity of the whales in the southern Gulf of Maine, many other behaviors are often observed from the Humpback Whales; including some of the surface active behaviors that have made this species so popular amongst whale watchers. The surface active behaviors we frequently see from the Humpback Whales include:

Flipper Slapping (aka "Flippering" or "Pec-slapping")

This is when Humpback Whales (or occasionally other whale species) lay on their sides or backs at the surface and raise one or both of their pectoral fins in the air. Humpbacks have unusually long side flippers (~15 feet long) which led to their being given the scientific name "Megaptera novaeangliae" or "Big-winged New Englander". Humpbacks often repeatedly strike the water's surface with their flippers which produced a loud slapping sound that can be heard a great distance both above and below the water.

Tail Breaching

This behavior involves the whale twisting and throwing the entire posterior end of its body out of the water. A slight variation on tail breaching is "tail-lobbing". This is when the whale lays on its back and repeated thrashes the tail and pounds at the surface.