Something for Everyone

The trip report for last Saturday lists a wealth of marine life - verifying what we’ve been reporting for weeks, that abundant food is luring record numbers of Humpbacks and sea birds. Naturalist Doreen Moser Gurrola’s report shows that there really was something for everyone - 17 species of birds, lunge-feeding whales, seals, sea lions, porpoises, and dolphins.


It really is startling when the Humpbacks break the water’s surface, mouths gaping like mammoth clam shells, ventral (throat) pleats extended for a gulp of krill or anchovies and scores of gallons of water. The lunge is a powerful trust, designed to fill the throat and expand the pleats to capacity with water and food.

According to scientists at the University of British Columbia baleen whales such as Humpbacks survive on a diet of the smallest of prey - krill, by having a jaw that spans a quarter of their body length, an enormous mouth that goes from head to belly button, and by doing lots of lunges. Their research shows that the whales can take in about 70 cubic meters of water in one gulp - that’s roughly the size of a school bus.



Here are the sightings from last Saturday from Doreen’s report:

On board The Lovely Martha:
Conditions: Calm seas, thick fog (<½ mile visibility).
Despite limited visibility, we had great sightings:

Birds: 17 species including Sooty Shearwaters (hundreds!), Pink-Footed Shearwater, Tufted Puffin, Common Murres, Pigeon Guillemot, Rhino Auklet, Black Oystercatchers, Western Gull, Heerman’s Gull, Caspian Tern, Elegant Tern, Brown Pelican, Brandt’s Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Double Crested Cormorant, Western Grebe, and Clark’s Grebe.


Cetaceans: 5 humpback whales: 1st sighting at Duxbury Reef in morning, 2nd sighting near weather buoy on return, and 3rd sighting of 3 near Duxbury on return. At this spot, one whale was continuously lunge feeding, showing baleen and ventral pleats.

Harbor porpoise, possible Dall’s porpoise, and possible Pacific White-sided dolphin (in SF Bay!)

Pinnipeds: Harbor Seal; California Sea Lion; Elephant Seal; Northern Fur Seal (>30 at Indian Head); Steller Sea Lion.

~Doreen

When we have a day like Doreen described, our passengers go home happy that they’ve seen a whale, or spotted a rare bird out at the mysterious Farallon Islands. Days like this one with all those sea lions lolling on the Farallon slopes, and photogenic Tufted Puffins within camera range really have something for everyone.


One more thing that I think everyone will find interesting are the Common Murre father/chick pairs swimming out at the Farallones now. Just in case you missed them, or to prepare you for what you’ll see on your upcoming SFBay Whale Watching trip, you have to check out the fantastic video clip on PRBO Conservation Science’s “Los Farallones” website at www.losfarallones.blogspot.com - they’ve filmed the plunge the chicks take off the cliffs into the sea where they then join their fathers and commence their hunting and fishing lessons. It’s an amazing sight - it’ll make a birder out of everyone.

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Finally, our favorite thing is meeting our passengers - we’re convinced that whale watchers are uncommonly interesting people. Our second favorite thing is getting complimentary letters from interesting, satisfied passengers from exotic locations. Thank you Ernie!




To: SF Bay Whale Watching
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: Whale Watching Excursions

Hi Roger,
Sorry for not replying before now but we only got back home to Scotland yesterday. We were with Saturday’s trip and we had a very enjoyable time and spotted at least 5 humpbacks which as you can guess gave us an enormous thrill. Can I take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for a wonderful day and please pass our compliments and thanks to Doreen our biologist whose knowledge of the animals and enthusiasm for her work was fantastic and added to the experience. Next time we are on the west coast we will definitely be out again looking for the elusive Blue Whale.
Thanks again
Ernie


Photos and text by Kathleen Jacques.

Albatrosses at the Farallones!

“At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came ;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.”

Poor albatross, things went downhill fast from there in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. That poem, published in 1798, arguably established the legendary status of the albatross as the greatest winged creature of the open ocean.

Last Sunday at South Farallon Island, SFBay Whale Watching passengers saw two Black-Footed Albatrosses. You need to see them to fully appreciate their 7 foot wingspan and their concorde vs beechcraft aerodynamics.

Look at the long, narrow wings of the albatross in Ed Estes’ photographs - these wings are made for gliding, allowing them to ride wind currents over hundreds of miles of open ocean. Albatrosses nest on Hawaiian Islands and on islands off Japan, but before reaching breeding age they may stay out to sea for years without attempting landfall.

The more I learn about the great pelagic (“open offshore”) seabirds the more awed I become. I confess that it was the 30 ton whales that captured most of my attention when I first headed outside the Gate toward the Farallones. I’d watched and photographed songbirds for years, but it was the avid interest of SFBay Whale Watching passengers dangling binoculars who had come aboard primarily to glimpse an albatross or some other great seabird that got me to focus skyward on the smaller-than-a-humpback, yet equally amazing birds.

Black-Footed Albatrosses mate for life, live for decades, sleep atop the water, snatch flying fish eggs, squid and carrion from the water’s surface, and have such a well developed sense of smell that they can locate food from miles away. Females lay one egg on a remote sandy beach- forget the nest - they generally don’t bother with nesting material.



Both males and females take turns sitting on that lone egg for about 65 days! Empty nest syndrome doesn’t come for another 4-5 months when the fledglings finally take to the air. About 5 years later, at breeding age, they’ll return to their natal colony to mate.
It’s hard to ignore a bigger-than-a-bus whale, but get to know an albatross and you’ll be booking an SFBay Whale (Albatross) Watching trip sometime soon.


Although the Black-Foots are the stars today, you see I’ve included some additional shots Ed has been getting lately of other seabirds out at the Farallones. Last month he got shots of birds bringing nesting materials back to the island, and you can see a Murre with a fresh catch that moments later was carried back to the nest. Ed’s gotten so good at photographing seabirds that I can’t keep the blogs rolling out fast enough.

By the way, we saw 10 to 12 Humpback Whales Sunday also...

Photos by Ed Estes. Text by Kathleen Jacques.