February 16: Sea of Cortez (noon report)

posted 2/16/2010

Hello whalewatchers,
We have had a remarkable morning so far with toothed whales as the theme.
But first, right away we saw two adult Craveri's murrelets with two chicks in tow. We had a very close look at these birds. I have seen several of these birds here, but never with chicks before.
Our next sighting was a group of common dolphin, followed by a small group of bottlenose dolphins, and then a group of 30 pilot whales with a few calves mixed in. We then saw several sperm whales on the surface with some up-close looks of females, one cow and calf, and one great big bull that was pretty close! We estimated 30 -50 sperm whales in a 5 square mile area.
We decided to continue south and look for something different and we were lucky to see a Brydes whale and we got a great look at it, including the three ridges on the rostrum.
Another great sighting was a red-billed tropicbird that flew directly over the boat so I'm sure everyone had a good look at it.
More later,
Capt Art