The Chase
Amazing to see their incredible agility and raw power. I have to thank Anthony Bucci for a fantastic trip out to Blackfish tonight, what a ride!
Johnstone Straight sunset
Smoke in the air enhanced the sunset, beautiful on the water last night.
A Roosevelt Elk in the fog.
We found him with over twenty gals on a foggy slope. Looks to me like he has enjoyed the rut so far.
Northern Pygmy Owl
A wonderful way to end the day yesterday.
It preferred Alder Trees to our dissapointment but better that than no Pygmy.
Coming straight at us
Humpback Whales day today ...incredible!
Whale Day
I had an insanely amazing day with Humpback Whales today, they were everywhere. we would move as far away from them as we could and run into another one, crazy, crazy day!
Lunge Feeding
The Humpback would dive then burst through surface with their jaws wide open scooping up the bait fish.
Lunge feeding
Here the Humpback is making a big splash as it burst through the surface of the water. The baleen filters out the water and holds the fish.
You can see how easy it would be for the whale to end up with the odd seabird or Gull in its mouth, if this happens they spit it out unfortunately the birds won't always survive. We haven't seen that happen if we did we would make and attempt to save it.
Humpback Whale feeding
The whales will save engery and float near the top of the water with their mouths open scooping up fish without doing the lunge.
The Baleen
When the whale lunge feeds it engulfs an enormous volume of water and fish which extends its throat pleats out. The baleen acts as a comb or strainer and the whale pushes the water out keeping the fish. Over several hours a whale can consume over a ton of herring or other small fish.
Humpback Whale
This is the underside of the jaw as it finished the lunge and closed its mouth. Up to 48 tons of whale they can reach 50ft long.
