Day 14
We spent the day in the middle of Rice’s whale core habitat area in great conditions. The marine mammal visual team was busy, totaling 17 sightings and encountering a wider variety of marine mammal species than the previous day. Noteworthy sightings included spinner dolphins, Risso’s dolphins, and several bottlenose dolphin groups. We also saw a group of blackfish (a term used to describe several species of small whales that look similar), but distance prevented us from narrowing the sighting to species. The team decided on a broader, more conservative category of “melon headed, pygmy, or false killer whales” as the identification.
The highlights of the day were two separate Rice’s whale sightings! We paused the on-effort survey to take photographs to confirm species identification. The latter of the two sightings occurred near the end of operations for the day during the “golden hour,” which made for some artsy photographs.
The bird team enjoyed another day sailing through paradise, with water everywhere and sparse bird sightings. One or two brown boobies visited the bow at various times. The highest concentration of birds occurred when six band-rumped storm-petrels were spotted hanging out together. The avian showstoppers today were a purple martin juvenile looking a little lost at sea and a bridled tern resting on some floating marine debris.
Many thanks to the science party for working through two Rice’s whale sightings and to the officers and crew on the bridge for helping us get the photos we needed!
Until next time…
Day 15
Good morning revelers!
The Fourth of July was anything but quiet for the visual team. Skies were blue, seas were calm and fireworks came in the form of 38 cetacean sightings. Due to excellent conditions, a large majority of sightings were very distant dolphin groups that remained unidentified. Among the identified sightings were bottlenose and Risso’s dolphins as well as some likely Stenellid dolphins, species in the genus Stenella. For part of the day the trackline took us to an area we playfully called, “Turtle Town” due to the number of turtle sightings we had there. On this trackline, the visual observers recorded 29 turtle sightings, 23 of which were leatherbacks!
Today the bird observers, who are always looking out close to the ship (0 to 300 meters), saw some young green turtles swimming by! Most blended in with seaweed but a few bold individuals were swimming seemingly unaware that their protection had left them. The brown boobies have kindly taken to perching on the anchors—where their strong-smelling excrement doesn't taint our bowdeck. They were the first birds to be seen today, roused by tempting schools of flying fish. Thankfully the bird observers are also tasked with counting and recording flying fish, otherwise the day could have been a bit dull with only a few Audubon's shearwaters, band-rumped storm-petrels, one masked booby, and a single bridled tern breaking the monotony of a mostly Beaufort Zero day.
We hope everyone ashore had a wonderful holiday. On board, we were treated to a feast of barbecue along with other tasty treats. Thanks to the steward department and crew for making the holiday special for us!
Sometimes you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine,
-The Survey Crew
Day 16
The cetacean visual team had 17 sightings today, down from 38 yesterday. The average sea state was higher than yesterday at Beaufort 3 or less, but overall still good sighting conditions. The majority of sightings were unidentified dolphins, but a few bottlenose bandits managed to dodge and duck their way through the wavelets to the bow. There was also a confirmed sighting of Atlantic spotted dolphins.
We ended the day eastbound, down to our southernmost line in the Rice’s whale core habitat. Tomorrow we will start trucking northward again along an opposing set of lines. We’ve still got a long way to go on this leg and a short time to get there!
The bird team spent another day surveying the microcosm of the 300-meter strip width, where the seaweed is always greener than in somebody else’s lake. We may dream of looking farther, but that would be a big mistake. We have such wondrous things around us, what more could we look for? Like the sneaky porcupinefish hiding in the seaweed along with juvenile green sea turtles today. Or the continuous stream of flying fish, flushing at the passing of the ship.
We have mostly occupied ourselves with these sightings as the birds proved elusive most of the day. We had brown boobies hanging out with us overnight again, but two departed sometime during the day. We also had a circling pair of cattle egrets, and a quick flyby of a possible yellowlegs. Most of the bird diversity seen today was further afield, such as the sole Audubon’s shearwater, our first Cory’s shearwater, and our first sighting of sooty terns, which have been mostly absent since the start of the expedition. Despite all this avian excitement, the highlight of the day definitely belongs to this cute porcupinefish!
Days 17-19
While those ashore slowly emerged from the haze of a long holiday weekend, the scientists and crew aboard the mighty NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter spent the holiday weekend in great survey conditions. We experienced some groundswell from the far-away tropical system, which did little more than gently rock us to sleep at night. While avoiding the remainder of Hurricane Beryl, the visual teams remained steadfast in their efforts, counting every single bottlenose dolphin in the area as well as possibly the same five brown boobies that remained near the ship.
On Saturday, the cetacean visual team had 23 sightings, with spinner dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, and pantropical spotted dolphins among the positively identified dolphin groups. They also had two sightings of Rice’s whales, one during the lunch hour and the other a spectacular sunset sighting making for beautiful photographs. The sunset whale is potentially new to our Rice’s whale photo-ID catalog. This means we may not have ever encountered this whale, may not have taken clear dorsal fin images if encountered, or the whale has newly acquired marks on its dorsal fin. We will update the catalog status with this whale as soon as possible.
Since writing this blog, the team confirmed this whale was new to the photo-ID catalog. They named the animal Beryl after the tropical system that temporarily disrupted the survey.
On Sunday, the majority of our cetacean sightings were unidentified. Detections are possibly the most important part of a survey, and the visual team did an amazing job detecting animals. Sometimes being unable to identify what we are seeing leaves us a little unsatisfied at the end of the day, but makes the encounters we do get to see up close even more rewarding.
Among the identified groups were bottlenose dolphins, Atlantic spotted dolphins, and Risso’s dolphins. After examining the photos, we changed one of the bottlenose dolphin groups to a mixed species sighting, as we also identified rough-toothed dolphins within the group. Other noteworthy non-mammal sightings included 10 leatherback turtles, three unidentified hardshell sea turtles, and a hammerhead shark.
Seabird species that don't have the strongest flying abilities, birds like terns and frigatebirds, can sometimes get picked up by strong winds of large hurricanes and transported rather long distances. So when a tropical storm or hurricane is in the forecast, it is not unusual for bird observers to see some new species that may be displaced by the storm. While the bird observers were anxiously awaiting some atypical sightings due to Hurricane Beryl, she only brought some swell.
What they did have were more polite brown boobies, perched on the strut holding our bow camera, for the most part shooting their guano overboard (versus our experience during leg 1). A few decided to rest on the bow deck, but unfortunately it caused them to suffer from seasickness so we scooped them up and tossed them, and their partially digested meals, overboard. It seems just once on the bow deck is sufficient even for these alien-looking birds to not make the same mistake twice.
The bird team noted the first parasitic jaeger fly-by of the second survey leg on Saturday. They also saw other tubenoses like the first Cory's shearwaters of the survey plus more Audubon's and even more band-rumped storm-petrels. Sunday highlights included a tripletail under a tarp (seemingly sheltering in place for Hurricane Beryl), an ocean triggerfish under a small piece of thin, clear plastic, and a small group of sailfish on the surface. Flying fish continued to be impressive and we added at least one adult booby to our list!
That's the news, and we are almost outta here (the northeast Gulf, that is)!
The Survey Crew
A Note About Marine Debris
Plastic debris is the most abundant type of marine debris in our ocean. It includes consumer items such as food wrappers, plastic beverage bottles, plastic bottle caps, plastic/foam carryout containers, drinking straws, and grocery bags. These items can enter the marine environment through ineffective or improper waste management, intentional or accidental dumping or littering, or stormwater runoff. Once in the environment, plastics will remain there indefinitely, which is why preventing these items from entering our waters in the first place is especially important.
