Perfect sun and glass all day. A big birdnado with lunge feeding!
- Bob Perry
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
2025 08–31 SB Channel
The ocean surface was mirror glass all day! The sun was bright and it was very warm. Once we got offshore, the water clarity was amazing, which enhanced our sightings. Totals for the day included: 2 humpback whales, 5000 common dolphins, 100 California sea lions, 1 Minke whale and 7 Ocean sunfish (Mola mola).
At 10:40 AM, we were east of the farm and watched about 1000 dolphins. During this time, there was a single Minke whale that came up to the surface twice, once was close. We spent most of our time watching a single humpback that was in travel mode aimed at a lot of surface activity that was perhaps a half a mile away.
Before we left and headed towards the big birdnado, our deckhand, Aspen, retrieved a large cluster of floating, deflated, multicolored Mylar balloons from the ocean surface.
From 11 AM to after 11:40 AM we stayed with an extremely large surface school of northern anchovies which caused the aforementioned birdnado. Hundreds of pelicans, western gulls, Heerman's gulls, sooty shearwaters, and cormorants were diving and feeding on the bait. Common dolphins and California sea lions were actively keeping the anchovies in a tight ball. Each time there was an attack, hundreds of anchovies lept out of the water in a big flourish… Like a down pour of rain on the water The dolphins were cooperatively feeding and attacked the anchovies in groups of as many as five at a time. The whale finally caught up with us and joined the banquet. It was probably feeding subsurface quite a bit, but on several occasions, it broke the water with a dramatic surface lunge. (see today’s photo for an example).
This whale exhibited a behavior I’ve seen many times before. Often when a whale is feeding actively on a bait ball, after a lunge, it swims off, away from the action, perhaps 100 yards or more. You’d think it may have lost interest, or it was “full.” But as fast as it left, it returns and continues to feed. Also today, the bait ball slowly drifted towards the Condor Express and sought shelter under the boat. This, of course, gave us a marvelous view of the millions of little fish.
We traveled west in search of additional wildlife. Along the way, we had great looks at a very large Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) with a second, smaller one, close by. The big beast was not shy and we got some absolutely fabulous looks. A little bit further along on our route we passed by five “dinner plate“ sized sunfish, and one of them breached a few feet out of the water.
We watched several large additional pods of dolphins and eventually found a second humpback whale. It was in travel mode, and never showed enough tail fluke to get an ID.
On the way back to the harbor… More dolphins.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry