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Naturalist’s Notebook: May 31 to June 06

The Dolphin Fleet has been whalewatching for nearly 40 years.  In that time many species have been sighted in the waters off of Cape Cod.  The most common sightings include several species of baleen whale; including humpback whales.

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And finback whales.

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And minke whales.

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A breaching minke whale
A breaching minke whale

MINKE BREACH

And Northern Right Whales.

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And also a species of toothed whale,  Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins.

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The two highlights of this week would have had to have been on May 31, when Mark Gilmore reported seeing a humpback whale surface lunging backward.  He reports that all of its pleats came bulging up out of the water and flopped around like a water balloon.  In his words, it was “very cool.”  I suspect that was a bit of an understatement.  The second would likely have been on June 6, when Nancy Scaglione-Peck reported seein a mother and calf finback pair travelling with an escort.  We all love mother and calf pairs.  Most of the pairs we see here are humpback whales.  So a finner cow/calf pair stands out.  Having a third whale (or escort) in the group is fairly common among humpback whales but no so much with finbacks, making this a very rare and special sighting.