Tag Archives: Blue Whale

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With the ocean looking like glass last Saturday, there were a lot of great sightings. The greatest of them all was the sighting of Blue Whales. A mother and her calf were seen off of The Sea Ranch.

Jodi Smith, of Naked Whale Research, went out of Fort Bragg and found another Blue Whale.

Blue Whales are the largest animal on earth. And they are on the endangered species list, as their recovery from the days of whaling has been slow. To see a mother with a calf is such a good sign.
To Jodi's joy she also saw several Northern Right Whale Dophins.
 They rose next to the boat and rode the bow for a while. You can read about Jodi's excellent day on the water on her blog at: http://orcinusorca.wix.com/nawhare-temp/apps/blog
And to learn more about Jodi's Naked Whale Research, which studies Killer Whales, here is that website:
Thanks to Jodi for allowing me to share her photos with you here.

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Ron took a boat out of Noyo Harbor. He and the others on board got to see Humpbacks and a few Blue Whales.

Here you see the behemouth spouting.

And below you can see its mottled back. Ron tells me you can identify individual Blue Whales by the patterns on its back. 

Here is the Blue Whale's very small dorsal fin.

And here's a photo of a Blue Whale's tail. 

You won't see Blue Whales come out of the water much. They don't - probably can't - breach like Humpbacks or Gray Whales as they are so huge. They are extremely endangered as they try to recover from intense whaling of years past.

A reference book I enjoy is "Whales and other Marine Mammals of California and Baja" by Tamara Eder. She writes that at birth a Blue Whale weighs about 2.5 tons and is 23 feet long. An adult can weigh up to 200 tons (181,000 kg) and be up to 110 feet (34 m) long.

I was told some years ago that if you see an island in the ocean where there wasn't one before, you've just seen a Blue Whale.

Thanks to Ron for allowing me to share his photos with you here. To see much more of Ron's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://www.levalleyphoto.com/home/

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As promised, here's the photo of a Blue Whale Craig Tooley took from an airplane last year.

And here's another Blue Whale Craig photographed several years ago.

The world's largest creature, Blue Whales are a rare sighting. They have been seen off the Mendonoma Coast this year, which is early. It signifies the abundance of food for these giants of the sea.

Thanks to Craig for allowing me to share these photos here. You can see more whale photography on Craig's web site: http://ruffimage.com/

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On July 5th I saw what I thought was a breach out in the Pacific Ocean. The ocean was calm and I saw a big splash of white water. Now, Rick and I are a half mile away from the ocean so when we see a big splash like this we know something special is going on. Thinking it might be a Humpback, I trained our scope on it and saw it wasn't a breach but a huge spout. Blue Whales!!! There were three, perhaps four of these behemoths.

You can see the back in the photos below. Blue Whales are so huge they do not come out of the water except for a peek at their backs.

I have a much, much better photo of a Blue Whale, taken by Craig Tooley from an airplane. I will share that another day. Any day you see whales is a good day, but seeing Blues is something extra special.