A package from Ogasawara arrived for me while I was in the UK, and I finally had time to open it a little while ago.

Inside were the trio of smiling sperm whales below, which will go nicely with the spectacular sperm whale carving I got from Ogasawara last year:

A trio of hand-carved sperm whales, crafted in Ogasawara

…and also this lovely humpback whale, which I named Poto, in honour of a wonderful baby whale we had the privilege of encountering toward the end of my stay in the Tonga this season.

Beautiful carving of a humpback whale, sent to me from Ogasawara

Poto was the 19th calf we ID-ed in Tonga.

Yes…I know I’m way behind on putting together my calf summary for Tonga this season. Please bear with me. After I get back from Ambon, I should be staying put for a while, so I’ll have a bit of time to catch my breath and catch up with the calf ID project.

I’ve been wanting to post this photograph from my recent trip to Ogasawara for a while, but haven’t been able to find time to do so because preparation for my upcoming trip to Ambon has been so crazy-hectic.

Anyway, this is a photo of an Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus).

Top-down view of an Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin

It’s not a particularly rare or unusual animal, but I like the photo because of the angle. It’s not often that you come across a top-down photo of a dolphin, probably because it’s not all that often that you find yourself…well…on top of a dolphin!

Actually, I saw this animal surfacing slowly to take a breath, and I swam over specifically to get this shot…a slightly different take on an otherwise familiar animal.

Having a 10-17mm Tokina lens attached to a Canon 7D camera helped a lot. The fisheye perspective helped to accentuate the streamlined curvature of the sleek marine mammal’s body, and the 7D’s rapid shutter rate gave me several successive shots to frame the animal exactly right.

After I posted this photo of a sperm whale from Ogasawara to Flickr, I received a comment/ question from Rick Pearson.

Friendly sperm whale encountered west of Chichijima, Ogasawara
Photograph taken under permit

Here’s Rick’s comment:

Hey Tony, any more info about this particular whale? Is it a male (kinda hard to tell from this angle), and how big was it? I went to your blog page and didn’t find much more info there, just that it was very friendly. The reason I’m asking, is that the entire front, flattened portion of it’s head is gray, and there are lots of scars all over the head and around the mouth. I haven’t seen that much gray in any underwater sperm whale photo, and according to both scientists, and the old time Yankee whalers, that much gray on the front was most often found only on older, and therefore much larger, male sperm whales.

I certainly noticed the grey colouration right away when we came across this whale, largely because it made the whale easy to spot, but also, as Rick alludes to, most sperm whales don’t seem to have so much grey.

I wasn’t aware of any possible correlation with the whale’s age or sex, however.

Anyway, I promised Rick I’d find and post another photo of the same whale, showing the underside so we can at least decide if it’s a male or not, so here it is:

Sperm whale hanging in the water
Photograph taken under permit

And here’s a zoomed-in view of the genital area:

Close-up of the whale’s underside
Photograph taken under permit

The whale wasn’t very big, at least as far as sperm whales go. I’d estimate it was 12 metres long at most, and it didn’t have the bulk of a mature male. I’ve been in the water with two mature bull sperm whales, and believe me…when you see a big bull…you know it!

Anyway, the colouration is intriguing. If anyone else has any insights or relevant knowledge, please share!

Sperm whales weren’t the only thing we saw in Ogasawara.

We came across two species of dolphins (Tursiops aduncus and Stenella attenuata), as well as a family of Cuvier’s beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris…I came oh so very tantalisingly close to getting in-water photos of them!).

We also rescued a baby Bulwer’s petrel (Bulweria bulwerii) that might have left the safety of its nest too soon. It was adrift in the water, unable to fly. Three of us managed to surround it, allowing me to grab hold of the frightened bird and take it back to land to be nursed to health and set free a few days later.

The most adrenaline-inducing non-sperm whale encounters, however, were with two large marlins that buzzed us at close quarters on two separate occasions…both times while we were preoccupied with large cetaceans.

This one was probably around two to two-and-a-half metres long (without the pointy part):

One of the marlins that buzzed us during a whale encounter

I’ve gone for years without ever seeing a marlin in the water, and now I’ve seen three in the past three months: one in Tonga, and two in Ogasawara.

By the way, does anyone know what kind of marlin this is? The local fishermen suggested that the fish were either striped or blue marlins.

Photographing sperm whales can be a challenge for many reasons, including the fact that…well…they’re not always terribly photogenic. They often just look like big brown blubber logs with stubby fins, a tail and a mouth.

Making sperm whales look nice can be challenging.

Sometimes, you have to look between the lines…or in this instance, between the jaw lines…to see something interesting:

See the leftover squid arm? Note the big teeth too.

I have to confess that I didn’t notice the squid arm while I was in the water, since the whale passed by at relatively high speed. The swells were also considerable, which made framing the whale a challenge as well.

I can’t be 100% certain, but I suspect the leftover calamari segment was from an Architeuthis squid. From the above photo, it looks like the arm was attached to the whale’s face, perhaps as a result of the “teeth” on the squid’s suckers, which look like this (photo below from last year):

In October 2009, I recovered a 351cm segment of an Architeuthis arm from the water after we saw a sperm whale breach. I suspected at the time that the squid arm might have been attached to the whale and became dislodged when the cetacean breached.

This photo seems to offer some support for my conjecture.

Note: Photographs taken under permit.

I just got back from Ogasawara, where I was fortunate enough to spend some more time with sperm whales.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write about the trip before I take off again in a few days, but here’s a sample image, taken during an encounter with a particularly inquisitive whale:

Friendly sperm whale encountered west of Chichijima, Ogasawara
Photograph taken under permit

９月２４日（金）国立科学博物館にて、１８：００から３０分マッコウクジラについて講演する予定です。

国立科学博物館の特別大哺乳類展（朝日新聞とWWF Japan協賛）は、７月１０日から９月２６日まで開催されており、すでに８月中旬で、入場者２０万人以上に達しています。

現在、僕が小笠原で撮影したマッコウクジラがダイオウイカをくわえている写真が展示されています。この瞬間を撮らえた写真は世界初です。

マッコウクジラとダイオウイカ

今回のトーク内容は、小笠原とドミニカ国で撮影した写真と映像を見ていただきながら、世界の一番大きな肉食動物と一緒に泳いだ経験、例えば、クジラが発するソナーの感覚、自分のフィンをかじられた瞬間、十数頭に囲まれた経験、ドミニカで出会った「スカー」という特別に触れるマッコウクジラの話などを予定しています。

もちろん、全部日本語で話すつもりです。僕の日本語を動物研究部脊椎動物研究グループ長の山田格さんが助けてくれると思います。

ギャラリートークは無料ですが、博物館の入場に１、４００円がかかります。しかし、金曜日の場合、１７：００以降に二人で入場すると２，０００円です。詳細はこのページを見てください。

皆んなのお越しをお待ちしています。

The National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo has been holding a special exhibition on marine mammals in conjunction with the Asahi Shimbun and WWF Japan.

The exhibition started on 10 July and winds up on 26 September. As of the middle of August, over 200,000 people have visited the exhibit!

Female sperm whale with giant squid in its mouth.

My photograph of a female sperm whale consuming part of an Architeuthis giant squid is on display as part of the exhibit, and I am scheduled to give a talk on what it’s like to be in the water with sperm whales on Friday, 24 September, from 18:00 to 18:30.

Since the museum is in Tokyo, I’ll be doing my best to give the talk entirely in Japanese (gulp). Fortunately, Tadasu Yamada from the Division of Vertebrates in the Department of Zoology at the Museum will be on hand to help translate when I exceed the limits of my Japanese vocabulary.

I’m not exactly sure how the talk will go, but I’m planning to take along some sperm whale images and video clips from my recent trips to Ogasawara and Dominica.

If you can make it to the talk, I’ll tell you what it’s like to be in the water next to the largest living carnivore on the planet, to have your fin chewed by a sperm whale, to get ping-ed by sperm whale sonar, to watch a large group of socialising whales, and even to stroke an unusual sperm whale named Scar that seems to seek out human attention.

My talk is free, but there is an admission charge of 1,400 Yen to get into the museum. There’s a special rate of 2,000 Yen for two people together if you enter the museum after 17:00 on that day.

If you happen to be in Tokyo on 24 September, please drop by and say hello! Details are on this page (in Japanese).

I just received this snapshot of my photo of a sperm whale eating giant squid from a friend who visited the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo earlier today. The photo is from a trip to Ogasawara, Japan in October 2009.

My photo on display at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo

The special exhibit about marine mammals will continue until 26 September. I haven’t been able to see the exhibit yet, but I’ve received a lot of positive feedback.

If you’re in Tokyo and have time, it might be worth dropping by.

Incidentally, the same photo is also on display at the Natural History Museum in London, though friends tell me the sperm whale section is dark and difficult to find.

Thanks Michiyo-san!

Update 26 July: I received a couple more photos of the exhibit from another friend:

Crowd looking at the sperm whale exhibit

Another view of the display with my sperm whale photo

Thanks Wakae-san!

Meet my new friend, a 50cm hand-carved wooden sperm whale, which arrived earlier today from Ogasawara.

The carving was specially made by an incredibly talented artist who lives in Ogasawara.

My friend and fellow photographer Douglas Seifert (who’s website has been “under construction” since the inception of the internet) has a carving similar to this one, and there’s a third on its way over to Eric Cheng.

I’ve named my new cetacean companion Scar, in honour of the friendly male sperm whale that I met in Dominica earlier this year.

Now I can go whale watching any time I want!