Readers’ wildlife photos (and a non-reader video)

As I wrote five days ago, adding video and photos, biologist Bruce Lyon and I boarded a small vessel in Moss Landing, California, hoping to see humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). As my videos and photos showed, we were amply rewarded, seeing not only whales breaching, lunge-feeding, and surface feeding, but also seeing them accompanied by literally hundreds of sea lions and thousands of birds, all trying to get some of the anchovies the whales were after. As lagniappe, at one point there was a pod of common dolphins swimming beside the boat.

Bruce, who’s a far better photographer than I, and who has much better equipment, sent me some of his photos from that afternoon, as well as of our visit to the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) colony at Año Nuevo, and I’m putting them up here. His commentary is indented, while mine is flush left:

From Año Nuevo State Park:

The dunes at Año Nuevo (tilde over the “n” is important or the name becomes “new anus”)

Off Moss Landing in the Monterey Bay, the water would be quiet, and suddenly hundreds of sea lions would appear along with a gazillion birds. That signaled that the humpbacks were rising to the surface, driving a big school of anchovies ahead of them. These baleen whales would then surface, engulfing huge masses of fish with their gaping maws, filtering out the fish and expelling the water. The sea lions and birds would get the leavings.

First, a bird:

A northern fulmar [Fulmarus glacialis], a tuberose related to petrels albatross and shearwaters. I cannot recall if the tube nose is used in their excellent sense of smell, for getting rid of salt water or both.

The “sea lion carpet” was one of the most amazing bits of biology I’ve ever seen:

Soon after the seals and birds appeared, the whales would come:

Look at that mouth!

Cropped closeup of the above photo showing  anchovies that escaped whale’s gulp:

Note the barnacles clinging to the whale. Some think breaches help detach these or sundry other parasites, but I have no data on that:

The sea lion carpet:

Nice view of blow hole. I think you muttered “Jesus Christ” as this guy swam under the boat—there were 4 or 5 whales swarming the boat at the time.

The dolphins were common dolphins [JAC: I’m guessing these are short-beaked common dolphins, Delphinus delphis]

At the end of the day. . .

Mad scientist meets Mad Otter:

And here’s a video I put up last year, filmed in South Africa, showing 22 breaches in an afternoon’s jaunt. One of them is apparently the first filming of the entire 40-ton animal coming completely out of the water. (Imagine the power it takes to do that!). Nobody yet understands why whales jump out of the water like this, but most biologists in the know thinks that it produces loud sounds used for inter-whale communication. The commentary on the video below includes this:

Entertaining us while we wait are migrating humpback whales. Some are a mothers with calves. Some are males traveling in small groups.

This day, there were few sardine sightings but the whales seemed to be everywhere! An unexpected bonus!

This video shows a humpback whale mother cow swimming with a calf. It shows an adult 40 ton whale on its back, slapping both its left and right fins on the water, then leaping entirely out of the water!

It seems that never before has a recording been made of an adult humpback whale leaping entirely out of the water! A very rare event, indeed.

Dolphins and even Great White Sharks have been seen flying out of the water, but this is a first for an adult humpback whale!