My first Humpback whale
I took my first photo of a whale in 1987 off the cost of Province Town, MA. A few months ago I decided to see if one of the photos I’d taken had enough info in them to get an ID in the HappyWhale database – and it did! Meet: Mirror ID: NA-0251 also know as GOM-Mirror (Gulf of Maine).
Mirror, who’s sex is unknown, meaning at minimum they have never been seen with a new calf which would mark them as female, is listed in the Gulf of Maine Humpback Whale Catalog at the Center for Coastal Studies and the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog at Allied Whale, College of the Atlantic They are And, it turns out my sighting is currently the oldest one we have for Mirror with two other sightings: 7/1/1992 off of Portland, ME and 7/24/2011 off of Portsmouth, MA. Thankfully the other photos are clearer than mine and show Mirror’s ‘mirrored’ white patches on their right and left tail flukes beautifully.
When I saw Mirror they were at the feeding in the south end of the area now known as Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary https://stellwagen.noaa.gov/ . Designated in 1992 by President GW Bush, SBNMS is 842-square miles of nutrient rich cold water that has supported humans, whales, and loads of other marine life.
Mirror is part of the North Atlantic Humpback whale population. From April/May Mirror and her associates primarily in and around Stellwagen Bank filling up on as much fish and krill as they can eat. As the weather and food shift with the coming of Fall, they begin their migration south to their breeding grounds in Caribbean. There they will meet up with Humpbacks traveling from as far away as Greenland, Iceland, and Norway (depending on the migration patterns for those other groups).
With the increasing popularity of of whale watching and citizen scientists posting their whale photos to HappyWhale and/or the many other whale catalogues being maintained around the world, it is entirely possible that there will be more sightings of Mirror added as more data is uploaded. And, now that I’m on record as one of those sightings, I get emails every time there is an update! So, if you happen to go whale watching in the Caribbean December through February, you might see them!