Four Blue Whales Sighted!

Senior Naturalist Carol Keiper narrates a spectacular recent Sunday trip. Lucky us, a terrific photographer, Joan Robins was on board to capture it all - special thanks to Joan! (www.joanrobins.com).


"Each adventure offshore always proves to be quite exciting! As we headed out under the Golden Gate Bridge we started our ocean adventure to the Farallon Islands with some spectacular sightings of dramatic plunge-diving brown pelicans! After capturing the fish they drain the water from their pouch, point their bill up and swallow the fish whole. Close by were Herrmann’s gulls and Western gulls waiting to steal some fish from the pelicans and several other surface divers, Brandt’s cormorants and common murres, and large flocks of Western grebes were also taking advantage of this patchy fish feast just outside the Golden Gate Bridge. "

"Next we started heading out to the Farallon Islands and about half way out, we were treated to one of nature’s most spectacular sightings – endangered blue whales! There were four blue whales, all about 70-80 ft, and changing direction frequenting (known as milling behavior) and Capt. Jim reported seeing krill on his depth sounder which indicated these whales were having a krill feast! Very tall blows (up to 30 ft!), very long backs, and then they also did some fluke-up dives which is rather rare for these whales, especially in relatively shallow water (<200ft)!"

"We had another exciting sighting when we arrived at the Southeast Farallon Islands! We saw thousands of nesting common murres on the very rocky slopes and cliffs. This is the time of the year when the adults and chicks will be getting ready to leave their nest site and start living on the ocean so they won’t be on the Farallones too much longer."




"Another whale sighting! This time we saw a seasonal resident gray whale very close to the shore near Saddle rock, and hopefully this juvenile was finding food because this is the time of the year when the large whales spend much of their time feeding in food-rich waters. Ocean conditions allowed us to circle the islands and cruise along the spectacular ocean carved north side and we headed further offshore towards the edge of the continental shelf where we found some breaching and fluke-up diving endangered humpback whales!"

"We also saw large flocks of Cassin’s auklets and half a dozen North Pacific Ocean wanderer, the Black-footed albatross! These masters of the wind did their dynamic soaring close to our boat and we were able to have a great view of their wing span which is over 6 ft! As we started heading back to the coast, our grand finale was sighting more blue whales! We were all so grateful about our timing, being in the right place at the right time, to witness the wonders of the marine environment. Marine birds and mammals are expert navigators and oceanographers, as well as amazing hunters that seek their shifting, very patchy prey resources across a seemingly faceless ocean. What a great pleasure to see the ocean in action!"

Narration by Naturalist Carol Keiper. Photos by Joan Robins. Blog by Kathleen Jacques.