Humpbacks bubble feeding in Alaska

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For the last few month I have been working on a cruise ship up in Alaska. While we do have a busy schedule, once in a while we have to opportunity to join one of the ships excursions.

Alaska is all about nature and wildlife, so when docked in Alaskas capital of Juneau I decided to join a whale watching trip. Also you never know what you will encounter on these trips, we were in for a big suprise.

While walking down to the boat we asked the group who just got back from their trip if they have seen any whales this morning, but all they said was that they were told not to say anything. Which was odd, but this also indicated that there was something special out there. First we thought they have spotted some Orcas, as they are pretty rare in this area.

But what we encountered was even more special than a pod of orcas. After a 30 min drive from the harbor, we saw quite a few boats in the same area. And then our guide pointed into the sky where quite a few birds, circled a particular spot. A few seconds later the birds started diving into the water and suddenly multiply humpbackwhales with their mouth wide open popped up at the surface. We counted at least 9 whales when they dove back down and showed us their tails. From that moment every 2 to 3 minutes thewhales came back up to feed.

This feeding technique is called bubble feeding and is pretty rare according to our guide. To get as many fish as possible in one spot the whales work together to circle and trap their pray while creating bubbles all around them. Then one of the whales gives a sigal and they all come up to feed. Our guide dropped a mic into the water and we could hear the whales talking to each other and once they were about to come up a lound sound was made by one of the whales. Also a good indicator was the birds diving down. Which helped us to get our cameras ready to take pictures.

This was such a spectacular experience, since you usually only see this on tv and for me it was so special to witness this behavior in the wild. On top of watching the whales feed multiple times, the humpbacks also breached a few times and show us their tails. It was such a beautiful day.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Fabulous
What a great day of whaling!