Image: humpback whale vertical lunge-feeding.
2024 07-18 SB Channel
Skies started out with a medium level stratus layer that had a few little sun patch/sucker holes here and there. There was a light breeze on the water. Later, things became glassy and sunny. The water was crystal clear. Totals for the day included: 10+ humpback whales, 1200 common dolphins, 200 California sea lions and one large ocean sunfish (Mola mola).
The common dolphin pods were small in size and seem to be scattered everywhere, starting just a couple of miles out from the harbor. They were either searching for food or in travel mode. Some groups had cow/calf pairs, others did not.
The region we call The Flats extends east from the last Carpinteria oil platform to Rincon and south to about mid Channel. The region was flush with humpbacks today. When we first arrived we watched a pair of humpbacks, a cow/calf pair. The calf threw its tail a number of times, rolled around, and proceeded to do a little bit of quick pec slapping. Sadly the little fellow never really gave us a good look at its tail. Mom on the other hand was a regular flucker and we had great opportunities to record her identity.
Later we came into an area with three humpback whales and one mugged the boat for a short while. We saw at least three different whales breaching in the distance. There were spouts in all directions. The whales were moving in random directions at high speed sometimes flying past the boat. Sometimes they ended up in a hotspot and did some feeding, other times they seem to be heading off to who knows where. We know we saw some repeat individuals, but we also saw plenty of them that were new. So our total count has a little + after it today to cover all those whales that we may have missed. There were lots of sea lions on the hotspots. A few times the whales seem to snort or let out trumpet blows as if they were annoyed by the sea lions. Several hotspots produced multiple instances of surface lunge feeding. (See today's photo for an example of this behavior).
In the middle of all the whales we stopped for a while and watched a giant ocean sunfish.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Condor Express,
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