Whale species you can watch: the field guide

Most people book a whale-watching trip and then find out which whale they are looking for. Doing it the other way round saves money and disappointment, because the ten whales below live in different water, on different timetables, and are watched from different boats.

The cards are drawn to scale against each other. All the lengths and weights are NOAA Fisheries figures, converted to metric, so they are comparable rather than collected from brochures.

Humpback whale

The humpback is the reason whale watching exists as an industry. It is theatrical at the surface — breaching, pectoral slapping, lobtailing — and it is the only large whale that reliably lifts its tail as it dives, which is also how researchers identify individuals. NOAA Fisheries gives it up to about 18 meters and 40 tons.

It is also the most widely distributed. The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary says that "every winter, thousands of humpback whales travel to the warm, shallow waters of Hawai'i", and that they can be seen there from November through April; the southern population does the same thing six months later off Australia and Madagascar. Best places: Hawaii in the northern winter, Alaska from May to September and Cape Cod from May to October, Queensland from August to October. Full guide: humpback whales.

Orca

NOAA Fisheries is blunt about it: "The killer whale is the largest member of the dolphin family." At up to 10 meters and 11 tons, a male orca's dorsal fin alone stands taller than most people. What matters for a trip is which kind you are looking for — fish-eating residents that move in large, noisy family groups, or mammal-hunting Bigg's whales that travel quietly in small numbers.

Best places: the Salish Sea from Victoria and Vancouver between April and October, northern Norway from the beginning of November to the end of January when the herring arrive, and the Valdés Peninsula where they take sea lions off the beach. Full guide: orcas.

Blue whale

Up to 110 feet and 330,000 pounds by NOAA's numbers — about 33 meters and 150 tons. Nothing prepares you for the length of the back as it rolls past. The blow is a single vertical column, and the fluke comes up only sometimes.

Blue whales are the hardest of the ten to plan around because they follow krill and are scarce everywhere. Sri Lanka is the most dependable: the Sri Lanka Navy runs its own cruises off the south coast from November to April and from Trincomalee on the east coast from May to October. Monterey puts them over a submarine canyon in summer, and Visit Azores says blue whales are "easily spotted at the end of the winter" in the Azores. Full guide: blue whales.

Sperm whale

The sperm whale is the deep diver: NOAA records dives that "routinely reach depths of 2,000 feet and can last for 45 minutes". On a trip you watch the square head logging at the surface, count the blows, and wait for the fluke. Females run to about 12 meters, males to 16.

Two places make it routine. Whale Watch Kaikōura in New Zealand states that "Giant Sperm Whales are the stars of the show and year-round residents", and Visit Norway says sperm whales can be seen along the Vesterålen coast off Andenes in Norway "all year round". The Azores, where the old whalers' vigia lookouts now spot for the tour boats, have them through the summer. Full guide: sperm whales.

Gray whale

Barnacled, mottled and without a dorsal fin, the gray whale does one of the longest migrations of any mammal, hugging the coast the whole way. That is what makes it watchable: the whales pass within a few kilometers of the beach, so the boats are short, cheap and close in.

Two ways to see them. Along the migration route from San Diego, Dana Point and Monterey in winter and spring, or in the Baja breeding lagoons, where mothers and calves approach the skiffs. Full guide: gray whales.

Fin whale

The second-largest animal on earth — 75 to 85 feet and 40 to 80 tons, says NOAA — and the one most often mistaken for something smaller because it shows so little. No breach, no fluke, just an enormous back and a tall blow, usually moving fast. Its jaw is asymmetrically colored, white on the right and dark on the left.

Best places: the St. Lawrence estuary at Tadoussac, which the marine park lists among its nine regular marine mammals, the Azores, and Iceland, where IceWhale counts fin whales among the species seen regularly on tours. Full guide: minke and fin whales.

Southern right whale

Named by whalers as the "right" whale to kill because it floated when dead, it is now the easiest big whale to watch without a boat. No dorsal fin, a V-shaped blow, and white callosities on the head unique to each animal. NOAA gives it 43 to 56 feet and up to 176,000 pounds.

Best places: Walker Bay at Hermanus in South Africa, the sheltered gulfs of Península Valdés, and Victoria and South Australia. Its northern cousin, the North Atlantic right whale, is down to fewer than 400 animals on NOAA Fisheries’ most recent published estimate and is protected by a 500-yard no-approach rule — you do not book a trip for it. Full guide: right whales.

Minke whale

Small for a rorqual at up to about 11 meters, fast, and marked with a white band on each flipper. Minkes surface three or four times and are gone, which is why they disappoint people expecting a humpback and delight people who know what they are looking at. IceWhale puts them off southern Iceland from March or April to September or October, and they are the backbone of whale watching in Reykjavík, the Hebrides off Scotland and the St. Lawrence.

Beluga

White, round-headed and without a dorsal fin, belugas live only in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. NOAA gives them up to 5 meters and an average of 1,430 kilograms, and notes they are "usually found in shallow coastal waters during the summer months" — which is exactly when the estuaries at Churchill and Tadoussac fill up.

The St. Lawrence population is endangered, and Canadian rules require boats to stay 400 meters away inside the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park. That is why beluga watching is done from small boats, kayaks and shore, and why the good trips talk about hydrophones rather than close passes. Full guide: belugas.

Short-finned pilot whale

Europe's most-watched whale is not a headline animal. Spain's environment ministry records short-finned pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins holding resident populations all year in the protected Teno-Rasca strip off south-west Tenerife, a twenty-minute run from the marinas at Costa Adeje and Los Gigantes. Pods are family groups and they log quietly at the surface; the show is social, not acrobatic. Madeira has them too.

And the dolphins

Half the trips in this atlas are sold as "whale and dolphin watching", and on most of them the dolphins do more than the whales. Bottlenose, common, spotted, striped, dusky and Hector's dolphins all ride bow waves and jump, and in places like the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores, Mirissa and Akaroa they are the near-certain sighting that makes the trip worth the fare even when the whales stay down. Swimming with wild dolphins is a different matter: it is regulated or banned in many of the places where it is sold, and we flag the local rule on each place page.

Once you know your whale, the two questions left are when and where. The season calendar answers the first; the ranked list of places answers the second.