Humpback Whale sighted last April in New York Harbor

This morning while sailing on the schooner Pioneer in Upper New York Harbor, we were all surprised when the captain shouted “whale”.    There, close aboard to starboard, the back and dorsal fin of a whale rose and then disappeared beneath the surface of the harbor. The whale surfaced again, some distance away swimming toward the Brooklyn shore near Red Hook.  Later in the morning, we saw it again, further off.  It looked to me to be a small humpback but could also have been a minke.   Unfortunately, we were handling sails when the whale surfaced and it didn’t wait around for anyone to grab their cameras.

Speaking to Gretchen Kowalik, a biologist at the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation ,  I learned that a whale had been sighted in the Hudson River yesterday.  It may be the same whale.

Last April a 30 – 40 foot long humpback whale was sighted in New York harbor within a few miles of where we saw this whale.  See Humpback Whale in New York Harbor.   In 2007  a minke whale did show up in the dirty waters Gowanus Bay in Brooklyn.

The water quality in New York Harbor has improved dramatically over the few decades but it was still a pleasant surprise to see a whale swimming off Red Hook, Brooklyn.