May 30, 2014: North Sea Minke Whale

365 Project, Day 195

Here is my day 195 submission to my 365Project:

It was another lovely day in the North Sea today! In fact it was one of our best days yet with 13 marine mammal sightings; 1 common seal sighting (harbour seal, phoca vitulina), five grey seal sightings (Halichoerus grypus), 2 harbour porpoise sightings (Phocoena phocoena), 4 minke whale sightings (Baleanoptera acutorostrata) and 1 white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) sighting. Today's photo is of one of the minke whales that passed quite close to the ship just as I was finishing my watch...fortunately I hadn't put my camera away yet and I snapped a few shots of it cruising by :)

An here are some shots of a leaping white-beaked dolphin, the sunrise and the second officer shooting off flares at a ship that was approaching us. Due to the multiple cables towed behind our vessel we are restricted in our ability to move and vessels must maintain a good distance from us. Finally, after trying to reach the ship for 45 minutes and setting off the flares the vessel responded and altered course! You just never know what's going to happen out here from day to day!

May 24, 2014: Early Morning Dolphins

365 Project, Day 192

Here is my day 192 submission to my 365Project:

As we are approaching summer the days are getting longer and longer here meaning that our night time acoustic monitoring (using the PAM, passive acoustic monitor, system) are quite short and currently run from midnight until ~4 am. It was a gorgeous morning when I went up to the bridge and I had a very strong feeling I was going to spot something very soon. I even commented to the officer on watch that this morning was going to be a great morning and that we'd surely be seeing something soon. 

Well, my feeling was right because not 20 minutes into my visual watch did I spot a group of dolphins traveling quickly ahead of us. It was a group of four White-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) including one very young animal! They traveled very quickly crossing ahead of the bow about 800 m ahead of us which, until they crossed into the early morning glare, was a nice distance to get some photos...and here are 3 of the animals zipping along at full speed :)

Early morning dolphins...white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)

white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)...you can really make out the tall, distinctly falcate dorsal fin which is key characteristic for species ID

white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)

white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)

white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) heading into the glare

white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)

Here are some action shots of a couple of juvenile gulls taking off...I love getting these photos and they're great for practicing frozen action shots :)

Juvenile gull

Juvenile gull take-off

Juvenile gull take-off

Juvenile gull take-off