Whales around Shelter Island
The wake up call came early this morning aboard the National Geographic Sea Bird. We had already found a small group of humpback whales near Shelter Island. All around the ship we could hear gasps of excitement in sync with the sounds of the whales exhaling and inhaling at the surface. Sleepy eyes grew wide at the sight of breaching whales rising up out of the water. Cameras clicked as fluke after fluke was displayed on its way back under the waterline.
These amazing creatures can weight up to 50 tons and have evolved from a meat eating animal that once lived on land. They have the same number of vertebrae as humans, though they are not nearly as flexible, as many of the vertebrae are fused together. The bone structure in their pectoral fin is also similar to our arms, except that it can only articulate where the fin attaches to the body. Off the bow we see the white underside of one of these pectoral fins flapping against the water, as if waving good morning.
Humpback whales have pleats running along the underside of their bodies that allow their mouths to expand when they take in enormous mouthfuls of water in order to feed. In place of teeth, they have baleen plates that are used to filter out the water while keeping in the krill or small fish they have captured. This morning we had an amazing opportunity to observe a group of humpback whales feeding cooperatively in a behavior called bubblenet feeding.
One by one, the flukes of each animal would surface, flip and then dive deep beneath their small fish prey. Out of site, one could take a moment to appreciate the breathtakingly serene, misty island surroundings. The silver water met the white horizon where the hilly coastline had faded from forest green to far off blue. Then we would notice the gulls begin to gather and circle, hoping for a quick catch before seven gigantic open whale mouths lunged upward.
The group had gathered below the surface and worked together to concentrate the fish by using vocalizations and a rising circle of blown bubbles as a net. There is no other place on the planet that we see this behavior in such large groups. The power and cooperation of the whales accompanied by the motion of the sea birds and the human-made bubbles blown by naturalist, Linda Burback, made for a truly magical morning.
In the afternoon we explored in Pavlof Harbor. Everywhere we looked salmon were jumping out of the water. Many had made it up the waterfall into Pavlof Lake where they would spawn and then die. Bear tracks, both big and small, assure us that the salmon are not the only species to mate and produce young here. It was wonderful to have such pleasant weather on this amazing day in Southeast Alaska.
