What You Actually See on a Cape Cod Whale Watch

Stellwagen Bank concentrates food, and the animals follow it.

Humpbacks

The species people come back talking about. They lunge-feed through bait balls, sometimes cooperatively, and they breach. Individual whales here are catalogued by their fluke markings, so the naturalist can often tell you which animal you are watching and where it was last seen.

Fin whales

The second-largest animal on the planet, and undemonstrative with it. You get scale rather than spectacle: a long back, a tall blow, and a sense of how much of the animal you are not seeing.

Minke whales

Small, fast, easy to overlook, and often the first cetacean of the day.

The rest

Atlantic white-sided dolphins, pilot whales, grey seals, and basking sharks in warm water. In April and May, North Atlantic right whales pass through — critically endangered, legally protected by wide distance rules, and never something to expect.

Not here

Orcas. They are not part of this ecosystem, and a listing suggesting otherwise is selling a search term rather than describing the trip.