Tag Archives: bubble net feeding

Bubble Net Feeding

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Aloha,

Wednesday’s whales were playing hide and seek with us for awhile for our one and only Whale Watch Cruise. On our Wake Up With the Whales Cruise, we departed from Kawaihae. Captain Keno saw some spouts to the south, so we headed that way. When he got to where he thought the whales might be, he stopped the boat and we waited. Lo and behold, two adult humpbacks surfaced almost right next to us (Captain Keno certainly stopped us at the right place)!. These big adults were spending a lot of time underwater, but we got good views of them 3 different times. Then we headed back north where we had seen a couple of other spouts. This time they were from Mom and baby. We watched them for a bit, and then an escort surfaced too. And what’s more…this may have been the same escort we saw on Monday, because we recognized those bright white pectoral fins as he swam past the boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though we don’t get to witness it here (at least not very often), Humpbacks have devised a very creative way to feed called “Bubble Net” feeding. A cooperative pod will dive under schools of krill, herring or other small fish. One whale will begin swimming in circles, and blowing bubbles out of his (or her) blowholes. Bubbles, as they rise, expand, which creates a “net” entrapping the prey. Once all the little fish or krill are balled together inside the circle of bubbles, the whales will take turns lunging through the middle of the circle to gulp their lunch. The whole process is accompanied by lots of vocalizations, culminating in a loud “shriek” right as the bubble net reaches the surface and right before the whales surface…we’re pretty sure the loud noises help to scare the fish upward and further compact the “bait ball”.

Flukes, Peduncle Throws, and more Curious Calves

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Aloha,

It’s been another windy weekend in Waikoloa, and that’s caused us to have some interesting Whale Watches. On Friday, our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales reports seeing 4 Humpbacks — 2 of them were about 100 yards away from us. We watched these close-up whales for most of the trip. They’d surface, spout a few times, and then sound for 10 minutes. We got to see lots of fluke shots, and noticed that one of our whales had mostly black flukes, and the other had a distinct white spot on each side of his flukes. We got to see our all black-fluke whale perform 2 peduncle throws (always exciting to see)! On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, the wind was a-blowin’ but we saw 3 Humpbacks spouting. We did deploy the hydrophone on that trip, but only picked up faint songs (often, when the wind blows hard, it’s difficult to keep the microphone deep enough for good resolution). On Sunday, our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales trip reports seeing 3 different pods of Cow/Calf/Escorts. Lots of spouting going on, but no real surface displays to report….we weren’t able to deploy the hydrophone on this trip either. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 3 whales. One was spotted in the beginning of the trip, South of the harbor. And a little later, we came upon a Cow/Calf pod. Baby was really pretty small, and as with most calves, interested in us. After they sounded, we shut the engines down and just drifted for awhile, waiting to see where they’d surface next. And then, our depth sounder alarm went off — they were 10 feet under the boat! On our 3:00 Whales and Cocktails, Captain Baker reports finding a very active competitive pod. We felt very lucky that we were able to watch the surface fight and chase for more than 40 minutes.

 

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Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Though we don’t get to witness it here (at least not very often), Humpbacks have devised a very creative way to feed called “Bubble Net” feeding. A cooperative pod will dive under schools of krill, herring or other small fish. One whale will begin swimming in circles, and blowing bubbles out of his (or her) blowholes. Bubbles, as they rise, expand, which creates a “net” entrapping the prey. Once the prey are balled together inside the circle of bubbles, the whales will take turns lunging through the middle of the circle to gulp their lunch. The whole process is accompanied by lots of vocalizations, culminating in a loud “shriek” right as the bubble net reaches the surface and right before the whales surface…we’re pretty sure the loud noises help to scare the fish upward and further compact the “bait ball”.

 

Mahalo,

Captain Claire