Tail fluke from an adult humpback whale. photo: Bob Perry www.CondorExpressPhotos.om
East to West our Humpbacks are Best
We ran east then ended up west in order to get the best humpback looks possible. It was a fairly calm day in the Santa Barbara Channel and the sun came out from behind the marine layer fairly early. Having heard about some #humpbackwhales southeast of the harbor, out past the oil rigs, we ran down that direction straight away. Here we found the only mother-calf pair out of the many many whale sighted. And, you regular readers of this news have already guessed it, the little one warmed up to the Condor Express and it was not long until it swam right over to us and said hello. Wow! We then ran a line due west to a location about 3 – 4 miles off UCSB where we have been regularly seeing humpback aggregations. Sure enough, the area was loaded with at least 10 more whales and more spouts all around us. The common #dolphins were a little thin to the east but we soon figured out why. They had all moved west with the whales. We did not see any surface signs of anchovy bait balls, or many crashing birds, but all the players were on location: birds, whales, sea lions and the Condor Express. Several of these “western whales” were traveling eastbound, so we followed them home to the harbor and ended a fantastic day of wildlife sightings. The final score was 12 humpback whale (more in the area) and at least 4,000 common dolphins, but hey, I can’t even count that high myself.
I’ll have the photos from today’s adventure posted sometime tomorrow afternoon at www.CondorExpressPhotos.com
You never know what Mother Nature has in store. Bob Perry Condor Express