A Whale of a Weekend

   

cropped photo of a whale off of Race Point

   This weekend Laurie and I took a trip to the Outer Cape. I had two missions. First I wanted to see whales from the beach. Secondly, I wanted to get video of herring going upstream.  Along with these two goals, we were also just looking for nice places to walk and I wanted to find places to take postcard quality photos

   During this time of year migrating whales make their way north to their summer feeding grounds. Many North Atlantic Right Whales spend time in Cape Cd Bay. Right now as many as seventy are in the bay. Other whales go by Cape beaches to Stellwagen Bank and points north. The best place to see them from shore is Race Point in Provincetown, but if you are lucky, you can also see them from other beaches. As for the herring, I had researched Cape Herring Runs, while most runs start later in the month, a couple of rivers are loaded with them. 

  We left early on Saturday morning and made it to Herring Cove Beach in P-town by 8:30 AM. It was cold but we had a clear view of Cape Cod Bay from the car. We sat for quite a while but eventually a Right Whale came by heading toward Race Point. We watched it spout three times and saw its back on and off for two minutes. It was way out but in the binoculars we had a good look at it. After another hour we decided it wasn't going to get any warmer so we may as well head over to Race Point. 

   The point is about two miles from the parking lot over some fairly soft sand. We went out that way and sat down to rest and scan the water. Laurie found a whale and called me over. It was a feeding whale really far from shore. We actually saw its head come out of the water to feed. I was looking through my binoculars not my camera unfortunately. There was a lot of bait in the water and gulls were all over it. I did finally get one photo of the whale's back but as I said, it was way out (maybe 1.5 miles from shore). I really had to crop it. On our walk back to the car we saw multiple whales near the horizon. Not worth photos, but kept us occupied walking over the sand.

                                                      Video of herring below

 

    Next we went to two herring runs. The first one in Orleans was on Herring Brook Rd. It only had a couple of herring in it. I'm told it is very tide dependent and the fish swim upstream on a raising tide. The tide was low while we were there. 

  The second at a Grist Mill on Stony Brook Rd in Eastham had a lot of herring. The light was bad as the sun reflected all of the trees and bushes in the water. I took some photos and a videos but I knew we'd go back Sunday and hope for better light.

   We ended our day at the Roadway Motel in Orleans. It was a $97/night before taxes. It was spotlessly clean. It had a microwave and a fridge. We watched a Jeopardy rerun (that we had never seen) where Laurie kicked my ass 15-6. My only saving grace was that I got the final jeopardy question right.

  Sunday

   After a great night in a really comfortable bed, Laurie went to buy a donut from a place she heard was great. I did my back exercises and packed our belongings. I had hoped to go to Race Point again because the plan was to go both days if Saturday wasn't spectacular. Though we saw whales on Sat, they were far off, so I was happy to see them, but spectacular would not describe the day. I decided to change the plans when Laurie, who was sore from our endless beach walk said " I'm not in the mood and I have a tude" (attitude). So we changed plans. 

 

   So I took a couple photos of a windmill down the street then went to Coast Guard Beach. We looked over the embankment for a few minutes incase we saw some whales. Then we went up the road to Nauset Lighthouse. 

   On our way back west we stopped at Fort Hill. This is a very good birding spot in May, though we were a month early, we just decided to go for a walk. We walked the Red Maple Swamp Trail. Then went up a hill where there was a rock used by the natives thousands of years ago to sharpen tools. There were grooves where rock axes were sharpened. I thought it was amazing.

   After we left Fort Hill it was close to noontime and went back to Stony Brook Rd herring run. The light was better since the sun was right above us. I took many short videos of the herring. It is a pretty place. The river is very pleasing and daffodils were everywhere. The Grist Mill with the paddlewheel made a nice backdrop.

  It was still early so we then went to Chatham hoping to see seals. We only saw one Grey Seal! This amazed me, I thought there would be hundreds. We looked at the beauty of the sandbars and took  a photo of the lighthouse.

   On our way home we stopped at Crane Management Area and the herring run at the outlet of John's Pond. The herring still hadn't made it into the river (the Quashnet River which is where I caught wild trout last year)

 

Nauset Light

   All in all it was a great two days. Though the whale show wasn't mind blowing, the fun was in the looking. Though we only had a good run of herring in one river, it was enough and we enjoyed watching them. We found beauty at lighthouses, the shoreline, and a red maple swamp. Not a bad weekend!

More photos below

The best bird I saw 
Iceland Gull

Dunlin

Stony Brook Grist Mill

Laurie on the sharpening rock

The fish ladder on Stony Brook

Chatham Light

View from Chatham Light