A feast of humpbacks
The previous few days have been a feast of Humpbacks. On Friday evening (30 June), we sailed towards Whitestone Bay – this was to be our anchorage for the evening. We’d had a fun day with puffins and sea-otters, and were looking forward to a quiet evening.
Just after dinner at around 9pm, Art casually walked into the lounge and said, “Is anyone interested in seeing whales bubble-net feeding?” I’d previously said that this, and capturing eagles grabbing fish from the water, are two things that I wanted to see & photograph on this trip. Within a moment, we were all up and out on the bow, with cameras clicking away!
Bubble-net feeding is predominantly a humpback activity, and frequently seen in this region. When the herring are coming in from the Pacific Ocean, one or two whales will start driving them towards a shallower shore line – others in their pod will then create a “net” of bubbles around the school of herring, essentially trapping them. They then push everything upwards, breaking the surface of the water with their mouths wide open, capturing as many herring as possible in their huge mouths and then forcing the water out through their baleen filters.
It is a well-documented coordinated activity, with the same whales working together. One whale "leads" and ends the process, with a vocalisation such as a loud grunt, or short roar. It is stunning to watch, and as with breaching, everything is silent until these huge animals break the surface of the water in unison.
That first evening was fascinating – many, many photos were taken. We saw this behaviour frequently over the following two days. During the day we would see gulls flying above the whales, landing to catch the “spoils” when the bubble-net activity finished. We learned to use these gulls as indicators of where the whales might surface – some were better at this than others.
At one point yesterday, we had whales bubble-net feeding just off our left bow – I’d been looking over the right side and saw huge bubbles rising up around our waterline, like giant glass baubles, perhaps 50cm diameter. It felt like they were just under the boat, but next moment, there they were, right alongside - it felt like we were looking into their mouths.
And then, as we travelled along the coast stopping to watch more bubble-net fishing, three humpbacks breached one after the other just ahead of us – locals think that this might be due to the happiness associated with a full stomach of herring!