It’s summertime on Stellwagen Bank, 50 miles north of Chatham, Massachusetts, in the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf of Maine. As the sun rises on this late June day, the bank hosts seabirds, many of them Great Shearwaters, and humpback, finback, and minke whales. For all these species, the season depends on a feast of tiny fish called sand lance, abundant in the region at this time of year.
Shearwaters wheel above the 50-foot research vessel Auk. Alongside, humpback fins and tails break the ocean’s surface. Aboard ship, researchers have a front-row seat to a simultaneous aerial and underwater ballet. While they marvel at the show, they also work to keep tabs on all the players — from huge whales to small fish — to track the health of their ecosystem at a time of unprecedented ocean warming.
Great Shearwaters spend most of their lives at sea, sailing over white-capped waves on long, stiff wings or feeding in groups on small fish, often with other seabirds and whales such as humpbacks.
“Shearwaters are named for their gliding flight, which scales these slim-winged seabirds just above the wave tops,” writes Nathalie Ward in Stellwagen Bank: A Guide to the Whales, Sea. “Tipping from side to side to trim sail, the birds effortlessly ride updrafts between the waves, occasionally skimming low into the wave’s trough, only to reappear beyond the next crest.”
