There's a certain kind of magic in the way winter sunlight catches the edge of a drifting iceberg, and maybe no one knows that feeling better than Esker, who seems quite at home in the ever-changing borderlands between warmth and cold.
Esker, a grand lady of the North Atlantic, has been spotted wherever the trail of adventure leads. Back in February of 2005, she was gliding through the balmy waters of Silver Bank, Dominican Republic—a place where the sea sparkles so bright you’d think the sun dropped its jewellery. Years later, in July of 2009, she surfaced in Witless Bay, Newfoundland, munching capelin while puffins darted over her broad back. What a switch it must have been: from Caribbean blue to the emerald swells of the North Atlantic.
She’s not a predictable traveller, that Esker. After a ten-year gap, Esker was back in the familiar warmth of Silver Bank in 2019, like she’d never left. But she’s not one to settle in one place for long. In August of 2022, she was reported in far-off Qaasuitsup, Greenland—the kind of place where the sea tastes like ice and the sky holds midnight light. The very next month, she turned up off Fogo Island, Newfoundland, reminding us she knows her way around our rocky shores, too.
Just when it seemed like she’d mapped out every icy corner and sunny shoal, Esker was spotted southwest of Bermuda in March 2025. Not many can say they’ve watched the seasons change from the Caribbean reefs to the Greenlandic floes and everywhere between.
Have you seen Esker? If you catch a fin, tail, or something that just might be her in your camera, let us know. Every sighting adds a new chapter to her story and helps us untangle the secrets of migration and those mysterious gaps.
Fun Fact
Humpback whales like Esker can live for over 50 years, crossing entire oceans during their long lives.
Esker’s Sightings
Silver Bank
February 7, 2005
Witless Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
July 20, 2009
Silver Bank
February 25, 2019
Qaasuitsup, Greenland
August 16, 2022
This is Happywhale's real data for this whale. The story above was generated based on these details, and a few creative assumptions.
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