Blue skies , crashing waves along the fundy shores this afternoon was wonderful. You could feel the cool breezes of Autumn in the air as I walked along the shoreline !
Showing posts with label bay of fundy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bay of fundy. Show all posts
Monday, October 8, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Killer whale sighting in Bay of Fundy
Killer whale sighting in Bay of Fundy
CBC News
Posted: Sep 20, 2012 1:44 PM AT
Last Updated: Sep 20, 2012 2:13 PM AT
Orca whale sighting off Digby (Tania Taylor-Campbell)
A group of sightseers signed on for a whale-watching cruise off Brier Island to perhaps catch a sight of a humpback whale, but nobody expected to have a close up adventure with one of the most powerful and mysterious predators in the sea.
It was already a great day for whale watching they'd seen three species, but then:
"I heard our captain yell, 'Holy smokes I think it is an orca,'" said Tania Campbell, who works for Welcome Aboard Whale Watching Tours.
"This was something distinct we had never seen anything like it before."
At first the tour could just see a fin on a far horizon, about half a mile. But as the boat approached "it got exciting really fast."
When the whale breached, the group could see the white, black and grey shape of the whale.
The killer whale is not a species common in east coast waters. (Tania Taylor-Campbell)
Then it would disappear and breach again.
"When an orca surfaces you see the tip of their dorsal and then it just keeps getting bigger and bigger until their head breaks the surface as well," Campbell said.
"One of the times we didn't see him until he broke the surface, and he was right along side us. Yeah, very close."
The killer whale is not a species common in east coast waters.
An orca, believed to be the same one, was spotted off Grand Manan Island off New Brunswick last year.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Bowhead turns up in Bay of Fundy
A bowhead whale surfaces in the Bay of Fundy last week. The bowhead’s normal range usually doesn’t bring it much farther south than Baffin Island. (CHRISTINE CALLAGHAN / Pirate's Cove Whale and Seabird Cruises)
Crew and passengers on a whale-watching tour in the Bay of Fundy off Long Island last week had an unexpected
encounter.
They spotted and photographed a bowhead whale, an Arctic-dwelling species that doesn’t usually come this far south.
Capt. Todd Sollows of Pirate’s Cove Whale and Seabird Cruises in Tiverton first thought it was a rare North Atlantic right whale when the mammal was spotted last Wednesday.
“I was heading for three humpbacks and spotted it and thought it looked kind of odd because it was acting differently,” said Sollows, who has been doing whale-watching tours for 23 years.
As he came closer he couldn’t see any callosities — the telltale callouses that identify right whales.
“It was turning away from us and definitely wasn’t used to boats and didn’t want to be watched,” Sollows said.
He told the guide to take some pictures, because “it was the queerest looking right whale I’ve ever seen. Then I said, kind of jokingly, ‘unless it’s a bowhead,’ and laughed it off because I’ve never heard tell of bowheads in the Bay of Fundy.”
He was talking to whale researchers from the New England Aquarium, stationed in Lubec, Maine, and descibed what he had seen and sent down photos.
“They said, ‘Oh, funny you should mention that, because we saw a bowhead last week.’”
He said it’s quite obvious looking at the photos, “but at the time you’re thinking that it doesn’t make sense that it could be a bowhead.”
He said he has only seen one of the whales before in pictures, and can add it to the list of unusual visitors he has spotted that also includes a blue whale.
“You never know what you’re going to see in the Bay of Fundy I guess.”
The bowhead’s normal range doesn’t bring it much farther south than Baffin Island, so a sighting in the Bay of Fundy is most unusual, says Dalhousie University professor Hal Whitehead.
While the Basque whalers were taking bowheads in the Strait of Belle Isle and along the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 16th century, “they’re almost never seen south of northern Labrador these days.”
The bowhead is a relative of the right whale and eats plankton, but Whitehead doesn’t think the whale in the Bay of Fundy was following food.
“I would say it was lost, the poor thing,” he said. “They’re closely associated, or near to ice, so this is the wrong move. The ice is disappearing from a lot of their normal habitat in the summer months, but what’s left is north, not south.”
He said he hasn’t heard of a bowhead in Nova Scotia waters or even south of Newfoundland in recent times.
He said more is known about the bowhead whales in the western Arctic because they migrate south past Alaska, “but the eastern Arctic ones are much more of a mystery.”
He said he suspects that the whale would have to make its way back north to survive because the food supply will dry up in the fall, when right whales move south again. He’s not sure it will survive the trip here, let alone if it follows the right whales south.
“That bowhead may be eating the same plankton that the right whales are in the Bay of Fundy and that may do it fine for a while, but that food source disappears in a few months. The right whales go south, and hopefully this guy will go north to where there are other bowheads.”
He said younger whales are the more likely ones to be lost.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Mystery ? [Squid Eggs ]
While dipping my feet in the cool waters of the Bay of Fundy this afternoon near Baxter's Harbour this mystery creature came floating by, at first I thought it was a jellyfish but now I am not sure Whatever it is called it was beautiful glistening in the summer sun !!!!!
Mystery solved these photos are squid eggs !!!!!!!
Monday, August 6, 2012
Basking shark in Sandy Cove herring weir
Published on August 2, 2012
Stanley Stanton has caught almost as much basking shark this year as he has herring.
The fisherman from Whale Cove fishes the weir in Sandy Cove and twice this year he has caught about 8,000 pounds of basking shark.
The first time was a couple weeks ago and Stanton says they seined up the 9-metre fish and released it without a problem. Except they lost all the herring and mackerel in the weir as well.
So he knew what to expect when one of his crew, James Marshall called Tuesday night, July 31.
“He said I’ve got good news and bad news,” says Stanton. “There’s some mackerel in the weir, and that damn shark is back in there too.”
Stanton and his crew went out to the weir around 6 a.m. the next morning, Wednesday, Aug. 1 and began to seine in the large fish.
Stanton says this time the basking shark made a sharp turn in the net and got his head tangled up in the twine.
Stanton and his crew were unable to get the shark untangled even after securing its tail to keep it from flapping around too much.
The shark was pulling the 11-metre seine boat right over to the point Stanton was worried they would capsize.
“He had the washboard right down to the water,” says Stanton. “Any farther and I figured the water was going to start coming in. I said boys we’ve got to take him up on the beach where we can handle him.”
They grounded the shark and the seine boat and then tried to free the shark from the net.
“But that was the end of him, there wasn’t much we could do for him after that.”
The shark’s body was floating in the cove the next morning but Stanton and his crew plan to tow it outside on the ebb tide that afternoon.
“It’s a shame,” says Stanton. “Judging by the size of him, he’s been around a long time.”
Basking sharks are the second largest fish in the sea after the whale shark. On average the adults measure 6-8m in length. According to Wikipedia, the largest basking shark ever recorded, 12.27 m, was also caught in a herring weir on the Bay of Fundy in 1851.
Whales however are much larger. Humpbacks normally range from 12- 16 m in length while blue whales, the largest animal ever, can measure up to 30 m (100’) in length.
Another basking shark measuring just over 8.5 m washed up in Gulliver’s Cove in late November 2006.
jriley@digbycourier.ca
Largest animal ever: Blue Whale—30m and 190 tonnes
Fin whales—27m
Humpbacks—16m
Largest fish: Whale shark—13.6m
Basking shark—12m
Largest living land animal: African bush elephant—10.6m long,
Minke whales—8m
Tallest living land animal: Giraffe—5.8m
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Ocean View of Cape Split
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/your_weather/details/3643/7300886/14/upload/1/787#utmxid=EAAAACD_N29-7CmDyYe4sM7ENrk;utmxpreview=0
this photo I took last night and I called the photo Ocean View of Cape Split , it is one of my favorite photos. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place ! It is showing on the weather network today . just click on the link above the photo is see in full view !
this photo I took last night and I called the photo Ocean View of Cape Split , it is one of my favorite photos. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place ! It is showing on the weather network today . just click on the link above the photo is see in full view !
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Leatherback sea turtle spotted in the Bay of Fundy
A leatherback sea turtle was spotted in the Bay of Fundy over the weekend. (Courtesy of Durlan Ingersoll)Related Stories
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A rare leatherback sea turtle was spotted by a group of bird watchers in the Bay of Fundy during the weekend.
The turtle is endangered worldwide and doesn't enter the Bay of Fundy very often because the water is too cold.
Don McAlpine, the head curator at the New Brunswick Museum, said leatherback sea turtles are more frequently seen in the Northumberland Strait than they are in the Bay of Fundy.
“The few records that we do have in the Bay of Fundy — and when I say that's probably maybe eight or 10 at the most, perhaps less than that — are all clustered around the mouth of the bay. And the turtles don't seem to come any further into the bay than around Grand Manan,” McAlpine said.
McApline said the turtle was likely travelling alone.
Leatherbacks are the largest of all sea turtles. The turtles are often seen off the coasts of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Canadian Sea Turtle Network Initiative says the waters off of eastern Canada support the highest concentration of leatherback sea turtles in the north Atlantic Ocean.
Leatherback turtles are considered to be critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of N
Leatherbacks are considered critically endangered
CBC News
Posted: Jul 10, 2012 10:00 AM AT
Last Updated: Jul 10, 2012 3:16 PM AT
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