Archive for October, 2009

Sperm Whale IDs

Sat, Oct 31st, 2009  |   Featured, Marine Life, Places, Adventures, Video, Multimedia 4 Comments

It’s been about a week since I got back from photographing sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Ogasawara with friends Eric Cheng, Douglas and Emily Seifert, and Julia Sumerling.

There is a lot I want to write about the trip, but as a first priority, I went through my photos and tried to do something that I don’t think anyone else has done/ is doing…ID individual sperm whales using in-water photos.

The somewhat crazy idea came to me because:

(a) My humpback whale calf ID project in Tonga is going well, with interesting revelations and help starting to come in from other people; and

(b) We were fortunate enough to see a lot of whales in the water the first few days we were in Ogasawara, and I noticed that many of the sperm whales have what appear to be unique white markings on their bodies, particularly in the lower abdominal area.

At first, I wasn’t sure if the white markings were unique to the whales in this particular area, or whether all sperm whales have these markings. I’m still not entirely certain (since there aren’t that many in-water images of sperm whales), but after checking Hal Whitehead’s book about sperm whales, a copy of which Julia brought along on the trip, I saw that a few of the images in his book showed whales in other parts of the world with similar markings.

So I decided early on in the trip to try to take as many photos of the undersides of sperm whales as possible, and catalogue our cetacean encounters once I got home.

Here is the result (the video may take a while to download, so give it time to buffer if you have a slow internet connection):

In summary, I was able to identify nine individual whales, all of which I believe to be members of a group of relatively friendly whales…the ones that had the giant squid. There were almost certainly more whales in the group.

What also seemed to emerge from the pattern of encounters is that the whale that we eventually saw with the squid in its mouth may have been the matriarch or leader of this particular group, as she showed up in a large percentage of my photos, meaning she approached us relatively often.

ID-ing sperm whales is a lot more difficult than humpbacks. Humpbacks are surface-active whales, while sperm whales dive down hundreds, even thousands of metres…and they stay down. But still, it is possible to ID them, as this short video demonstrates.

Whether these IDs will come in useful over the long-term or not…only time will tell. If I get a chance to go back, I’m hoping to continue this endeavour, with the objective of seeing if it’s possible to document a consistent population and/ or frequent visitors to the area.

The video above is small, so it’s difficult to read the text. This is a PDF document (11MB) of the slides in the presentation, and this is a bigger Quicktime video file (640×360, 79MB…Do not click this link and try to open in your browser. Right click to download the file only if you have a good internet connection.). There’s also a .mp4 file available via iTunes.

Note: Photographs taken under permit.

The Last Supper

Sat, Oct 31st, 2009  |   Funny Stuff, Musings, People 2 Comments

A few weeks ago, I welcomed Eric, Julia, Douglas and Emily to Japan for the start of our quest to photograph and video sperm whales by taking them to dinner at a small sushi restaurant outside Tokyo.

Our trip was a wild success, and Eric and Julia have already gone back. Tonight, we had dinner with Douglas and Emily to say goodbye, as they’ll be boarding a plane for the long trip home tomorrow. Tom, one of Douglas’s friends from high school, joined us too.

kushiyaki

I took them to a small kushiyaki restaurant called Kushihana (串花) in Nishi-azabu. In case you’re not familiar with kushiyaki cuisine, it’s basically delicious bite-sized morsels of stuff skewered and deep-fried on little sticks, generally washed down with copious quantities of beer, shochu, or whatever other form of alcohol is on hand.

Nishi-azabu a swank neighborhood in Tokyo with lots of fancy shops, restaurants and clubs, but this place is quaint and cozy, and just about everyone who goes there is a diver. The owner is a diver and a big fan of underwater photography, so it seemed like an appropriate place for our last dinner together.

Of course, we couldn’t let the evening go by without a bit of fun…at Douglas’s expense:

I’m sure Douglas had a nagging feeling that he was being set up, but he was a good sport and played along, much to the amusement of all the other people in the restaurant (who were all in on the gag).

If you’re ever in Tokyo and feel like going to a small place that’s not packed with tourists and socialites, this is a map to Kushihana, and the address is Minato-ku, Nishiazabu 4-2-15, 106-0031 (港区西麻布4-2-15, 106-0031). You have to speak Japanese though.

And make sure you visit the bathroom, where one of my sperm whale photos is on display.

Another Humpback Mother Match

Wed, Oct 28th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 2 Comments

While I was in Tonga this year, I documented a female humpback whale that had calfs in 2008 and 2009, meaning she had calfs two years in a row, and visited Vava’u two years in a row.

The female humpback (whom we named Lilo) is the mother of Scratches (calf #1/ 2008) and Stitches (calf #4/ 2009) (details here).

Thanks to help from two people (Nonie Silver and Karen Stone), there is a second example of this!

Here is a photograph of Chibi-chan (calf #16/ 2008) and mom, which I took on 12 September 2008:

humpback whale

As is apparent from this image, the adult whale has an easily identifiable pattern on her body.

Karen Stone sent me images of this same female with a calf earlier this month, making this calf #29 for 2009. Karen named the calf “Floppy” for its penchant for flopping around on its mother’s head and back.

Subsequently, sharp-eyed Nonie Silver, who also photographed this whale with a calf this season, found the match to Chibi-chan’s mother in my 2008 file.

So…

Scratches (calf #1/ 2008) and Stitches (calf #4/ 2009) have the same mom.
Chibi-chan (calf #16/ 2008) and Floppy (calf #29/ 2009) have the same mom.

Amazing what we can learn with a bit of hard work and cooperation. Thank you Nonie and Karen!

I’ve updated my calf PDF file to include Floppy, and my 2008 summary is here.

Article: Ambon (Japanese)

Tue, Oct 27th, 2009  |   Places, Adventures 4 Comments

cuttlefishAn article I wrote in Japanese about diving in Ambon just came out.

Not many people have travelled to Ambon since the social unrest there in the late 1990s. I’ve been there twice now, and I’ll definitely be going back. The critter/ muck diving is fantastic, and there are no crowds.

If you happen to read Japanese, or just want to look at the photos, the PDF file is about 3.5MB.

Related post: Ambon Adventure

Upside Down

Mon, Oct 26th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 4 Comments

As usual, it’s been a whirlwind of activity for me after getting back yesterday from my trip to photograph sperm whales…responding two weeks late to “urgent” emails, catching up on other messages, plowing through snail mail, confirming plans for my next trip, sorting through equipment, ordering supplies, etc.

The long and the short of it is that it’ll take me a while to upload more information about the amazingly successful trip we had to Ogasawara.

For the time being, here’s a teaser image of a sperm whale having fun at the surface:

sperm whale

Why was the whale swimming upside down? I guess just because it can.

Note: Photograph taken under permit.

Sperm Whales!

Sun, Oct 18th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 24 Comments

…just a quick update from the Ogasawara Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where I’ve been for the past week or so with a few friends photographing sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus).

In short, we’ve had really good luck, encountering sperm whales on most days, as well as seeing a bunch of other interesting stuff, like Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), pan-tropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata), deep-water octopus parts (left overs from sperm whale meals…I think from a seven-arm octopus (Haliphron atlanticus)), and even a few beaked whales (from the surface only).

The highlight so far has been an encounter with a group of six sperm whales (five adult females and a baby), with one of the adults chewing on a giant squid. Yes…I know it sounds unbelievable, but we have photos and video to prove it!

In fact, our trip has been such a success that we’ve extended our stay, so I won’t be back to regular communication until after the 25th of this month. My access to the internet is restricted, so I don’t anticipate posting again while I’m here.

For now, following are a handful of sample images, starting with a sperm whale profile:

sperm whale

An image of Eric Cheng photographing a blob of left-over deep-water octopus parts probably left uneaten by a sperm whale:

eric

And a friendly whale at the surface turning to take a look at us:

sperm whale

Note: Photographs taken under permit.

Facebook Uncensored

Fri, Oct 9th, 2009  |   Musings 14 Comments

I recently posted a link to some amazing photography showing the devastation of the recent earthquake in Sumatra. The link was to the website of the Boston Globe.

Some dipshitSomeone on Facebook submitted a complaint, marking the site as “abusive” and for some inexplicable reason, Facebook censored the link:

facebook

I wrote to Facebook and asked why the link was censored. I received a nice response from Keith in User Operations, who told me he forwarded my query to the relevant department. Some hours later, the censored link was restored, though no one from the Department of Thought Control at Facebook let me know.

I still can’t figure out why someone at Facebook is so censorship-happy that they’d block a legitimate link to a web page of photojournalistic value.

I can never figure out people who find it necessary or incumbent upon themselves to try to dictate what other people see or think.

This is a minor, minor incident, but censorship should never be permitted.

Censorship and self-righteous morons who feel the need to censor: 0
Common sense and good judgment: 1

The First Supper

Thu, Oct 8th, 2009  |   Musings, People 8 Comments

My first dinner together with the small group of brave adventurers about to set off in search of sperm whales. Location…my favourite hidden-away sushi place just outside Tokyo, where the food is always fresh and there are never any tourists:

dinner

Upcoming Adventures

Wed, Oct 7th, 2009  |   Places, Adventures, Trips, Workshops No Comments

There has been one cancellation for the upcoming 8 to 19 December 2009 Eastern Fields trip in Papua New Guinea that Eric Cheng and I will be on.

If you’re looking for a really special place to visit during this year end, this is the place. You can expect to see some amazing stuff, and dive where very few people have.

silvertip shark

Click this link to read more about the trip, and let me know if you’re interested.

While I’m on the topic of trips, there are a few spaces available for The Night Safari trip to the Lembeh Strait in Feb/ March next year.

In case it’s not abundantly clear from the trip name, the focus on the excursion will be on diving and photographing at night. It’s a unique opportunity to experience the dark side of Lembeh and see a lot of interesting behaviour that day-divers miss. The entire resort will be operating on a night schedule, so it’ll be like a big sleep over, except that we’ll be diving and changing batteries the entire time.

octopus

Contact Sanah or David at Scubacam for more information about The Night Safari.

And finally, my humpback whale trips for 2010 are fully booked as of now. If you’d like to be notified if a space opens up, drop me a note via my contact form.

Cute Calf Conundrum

Mon, Oct 5th, 2009  |   Musings No Comments

Since posting my summary of humpback whale calfs a couple of days ago, I’ve received a few messages with photos that confirm additional calfs. Hurray!

As of now, the count stands at 29 calfs. I’ll update the file and post a revised version soon.

In the meantime, I’m contemplating how to classify this particular calf, which was sent in by a friend who’s travelled to Tonga with us for the past three years.

For those of you who are wondering…yes, they really do look like this in the water!

humpback whale

What Is This?

Sun, Oct 4th, 2009  |   Marine Life 16 Comments

Sorting through images for an article, I came across this photo from my recent trip to Ambon. I think it’s a really small crustacean of some sort…perhaps a mantis shrimp?

The little critter is perched atop a bit of Halimeda algae, so it’s easy to get a sense of scale (really small!).

I can make out its eye, what looks like a pair of really long legs sticking out to the left, and what appear to be retracted claws (which is what makes me lean toward mantis shrimp as an ID).

Any crustacean experts out there happen to know what this is?

crustacean

Humpback Whale Calf Summary

Sat, Oct 3rd, 2009  |   Featured, Marine Life, Places, Adventures 24 Comments

It’s taken a while (specifically…an estimated 355 hours on/ in the water, plus more than 150 hours to download, tag, sort, look through, and edit photos and notes), but I’ve finally been able to go through all our humpback whale calf images from our 2009 stay in Tonga and compile this summary document.

Summary of humpback whale calfs: 2009, v1 (03 Oct ’09)
Summary of humpback whale calfs: 2009, v2 (08 Oct ’09, added two calfs)
Summary of humpback whale calfs: 2009, v3 (28 Oct ’09, added one calf, whose mother also had a calf in 2008)
Summary of humpback whale calfs: 2009, v4 (06 Nov ’09, added one calf)
Summary of humpback whale calfs: 2009, v5 (02 Apr ’10, added one calf)
Summary of humpback whale calfs: 2009, v6 (08 Oct ’11, corrected sex ID of Luna (calf #13) on summary table)

The PDF document is large file (v6: 42 pages, around 14.5MB), so if you are in a location with limited bandwidth, it may take some time to download.

(In case you’re interested in comparing with the 2008 season, my 2008 summary is here.)

In total, we photo ID-ed 26 calfs in the Vava’u area this year (plus 3 more with the help of other people), compared with 14 in 2008. By all accounts, the 2009 season is a banner year for baby whales in Tonga.

lilo and stitches

The document is a work-in-progress, as I hope that other people will contribute data to augment the list of calfs that we were able to identify. If you have any images and information about additional ID-able calfs, please let me know.

What I’m looking for is (a) images, dates and locations of sightings of calfs not contained in this document, and (b) additional dates and sightings of calfs that are already in this document.

If you send information, please send low-res jpgs. I will only include additional data if I can verify the relevant calf sighting with photographs. It’s too easy to make mistakes based on memory alone.

I know, because I initially mis-identified Daruma (calf #23/ 2009) as Mei Mei (calf #22/ 2009). When you’re in the water, it’s difficult to be 100% accurate with IDs, so it was only during the photo/ video editing process that I realised my mistake.

For the first time, we carried portable GPS units this season, marking the locations of our calf sightings. Here is a map of our ID-ed calf sightings:


View Calf IDs Tonga 2009 in a larger map

And this is a map of calfs we saw, but were unable to ID:


View Unidentified Calfs Tonga 2009 in a larger map

If all goes well, I’ll put together another document during my 2010 stay in Tonga, which I hope will be another year with lots of baby whales.