Humpback Whale

Bobbing along on a small fishing boat in the Alaska wilderness with two other couples we experienced probably our most enjoyable wildlife experience. Bubble feeding Humpback Whales in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.

In 2012 we spent two months camping in remote areas of Alaska photographing grizzly bear, black bear, caribou, moose, otters, bald eagles, seabirds and humpback whales.

Humpbacks can grow to 60 feet long and can weigh in at a whopping 40 tons. Flippers grow to 16 feet while their tails can grow to 18 feet wide. The shape and colour pattern on the underside of the tail is unique, like a fingerprint, and used to identify each whale.

Humpbacks spend their summers in Alaska consuming about 2,000 pounds of krill and small fish every day preparing for their winter migration trip to Hawaii.

Their name comes from the large hump that forms before they make a deep dive.

On our adventure the captain dropped a hydrophone into the water and we could hear the humpbacks singing. We could also hear the sound of one of the whales blowing bubbles creating a circular wall around the kettle of fish and krill. Then with a bursting explosion twelve humpbacks emerged, inside the circle, mouths agape, scooping in enormous amounts of fish and krill.

As their mouths closed and the baleen filtered out the krill gulls would try to catch escaping fish.

All the whales would then blow, arch their backs, and dive, giving us great views of their tail markings. One whale began his dive so close to our boat the stinky, slimy blow actually blew all over us.

For the next couple of hours we sat, well I didn’t actually sit, the only boat there, watching this spectacle repeat over and over again.

We observed and photographed lots of wildlife that day including sea otters, seals, sea lions, lots of different sea birds, even a breaching humpback whale but it was that couple of hours quietly adrift we will embrace forever.