Each summer dozens of humpback whales return to Massachusetts Bay. They have spent their winter on Silver, Navidad and Mouchoir Banks north of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean where they calve in the warm seas. While on the banks the whales sing to one another, inventing a new sing each year that the whales all learn personal variations of.
By spring, they leave the Caribbean in search of food in the nutrient rich waters of the north. Longer hours of sunlight in the northern summer bring phytoplankton blooms. Zooplankton feeds, schools of sand lance, capelin and other small fish grow in numbers. The humpbacks spread out across New England, the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland & Labrador and Greenland. They feed and raise their calves, growing fat and healthy. As fall approaches, the whales return south.
A late summer weekend found Tazzarin out watching the humpbacks of Massachusetts Bay.
