There was s sheer drop off from the island in the background that was approximately 100ft deep. The Humpbacks were bubble netting the bait fish from the depths then rising to the surface capturing the fish in their huge mouths.
I admit it was difficult at first to figure out what part of the whale we were seeing. This shot the right side is the top of the head with a strip of the baleen visible, the left side, lower jaw creates a basket the food is captured in. When the jaw closes the water is forced out and the small fish or krill remain inside. This was taken during a fishing trip just after 6am at ISO 10,000 in a desperate attempt to capture the whale. I didn’t know at that time that we were in the middle of a pod of Humpbacks we were about to get the show of our lives. Lots more to come :) Settings f/4.5 100mm 1/200sec ISO 10,000 Humpbacks can easily be identified by their stocky body, obvious hump, black dorsal coloring and elongated pectoral fins. The head and lower jaw are covered with knobs called tubercles, which are hair follicles and are characteristic of the species. The fluked tail, which typically rises above the surface when diving, has wavy trailing edges. Humpbacks have 270 to 400 darkly colored baleen plates on each side of their mouths. The plates measure from 18 in (46 cm) in the front to about 3 ft (0.91 m) in the back, behind the hinge. Ventral grooves run from the lower jaw to the umbilicus, about halfway along the underside of the body. These grooves are less numerous (usually 14–22) than in other rorquals, but are fairly wide. Info from Wikipedia
