Check out this video taken by team member Miguel Neves of the whales going under the bridge.
We got ready to go out and soon were deploying the Tango. Bjarni, the farmer from Eidi farm, has been helping us this season picking up and deploying the Tango every day we go out with his tractor. With his help we were out in the water and ready for some work again! Conditions were good, not so much wind and no rain or snow. So we start by doing some photo-id to identify which whales were around. The whales seemed spread out, with smaller groups in different locations, so we took the opportunity to do some acoustic recordings with a hydrophone array that allows us to locate where sounds come from. This way we could tease apart which of these smaller groups was producing sounds. Between photo-id and recording sessions the morning went by and with the sun out and warming us (slightly!) we had lunch. It was a quiet and perfect morning, just what we had been craving for after some days without whales.
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| The Tango being deployed in Kolgrafafjordur by Bjarni. |
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| Out of the water and ready for the next time the whales show up! |
After lunch the whales started travelling and moving out of the fjord. We followed them, the weather was not too bad on the other side of the bridge and we could attempt some biopsying. This year we are trying to collect biopsies of identified individuals to investigate their genetics, diet and pollutant levels. It is incredible the amount of information we can collect with such a small sample of their skin and outer blubber layer. We try to be very careful to only biopsy whales we haven't sampled yet and soon we managed to sample one of the adult males we needed. The whales kept travelling slowly out of the fjord but the weather was deteriorating. Wind increased, it started snowing and continuing work was becoming a challenge. Even seeing anything was a challenge when snow was hitting our eyes! We managed to get one more sample and we decided to stop then and come back home. It was the right decision; the weather kept getting worse and worse and for the rest of that day and the following day it was impossible to work even though the whales were back inside Kolgrafafjordur.
These two days have lifted our hopes that the whales are around and maybe we will get some more chances to work before the end of the season...today there have been no sightings but the weather is not very good and a storm is expected tonight. So again we wait for nature to give us one more chance to have another incredible day.
Amazing! Do you have a sense of the best time(s) of day and shore locations to see the orcas in Kolgrafafjordur? I will be in the area next week and would love to spot some. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie, it's getting more and more unpredictable to know when the whales are coming into the fjords, but one of the best spots is close to the Kolgrafafjordur bridge, you might just see the whales go under the bridge! Thanks for reading and good luck! :)
DeleteThank you so much! We'll try our best—it sounds like Laki tours are a great option.
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ReplyDeleteHi what type of orcas are the Icelandic orcas? Resident or Transient?
ReplyDeleteHi, this is a very good question but we don't know if Icelandic orcas follow the same patterns as orcas in the North Pacific with a clear division between residents and transients. It has been suggested that they feed primarily on Atlantic herring, however, more recent studies suggested that there may be individuals that switch prey and may not be strictly fish-eating. This is one of the questions we are hoping to answer with our project, as we try to document feeding events in different locations and at different times of the year. The recent matches between Iceland and Scotland do suggest that at least some whales are not staying around Icelandic coastal waters feeding on herring alone. They seem instead to be regularly travelling much further and possibly feeding on other prey, but we don't have confirmation of what prey it is.
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