Tag Archives: Humpback Whales

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John and Janice Batchelder had a wonderful sighting of Humpback Whales a couple of weeks ago. Seen off of The Sea Ranch, it was quite a spectacle. Here a Humpback is breaching. Humpbacks are among the most acrobatic of whales.

Below you will see one of the Humpback's long flippers.

The Humpbacks were following their food source, forage fish like huge schools of anchovies. Along with the whales, Gulls and Brown Pelicans were feasting too.

Thanks to John for allowing me to share his photos with you here.

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Paul and Jackie Brewer have a front row seat to watch for whales from their Gualala home. Last week a pod of Humpback Whales was seen feeding. Here you can see the spouts of three Humpbacks.

And here is the tail of a Humpback Whale.

In this next photo you can see another tail photo but there's a line of what Paul thought might be fish. Upon closer examination, whale expert Scott Mercer determined they were "many, many California Sea Lions." There must have been a LOT of forage fish in the ocean.

More whales were seen yesterday, including two spouts seen by me as Rick and I drove home from Santa Rosa. The spouts were seen south of Fort Ross. It never gets old see a whale...never.

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

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Though Rich Kuehn took these photos off the coast of Monterey, Humpbacks occasionally are seen off the Mendonoma Coast in summer and autumn. I thought his photo was so beautiful and asked if I could share it here. With the spout showing a rainbow, the Gulls and the blue Pacific Ocean, it is an amazing photo.

 Thanks to Rich for allowing me to share his photo with you here.

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Humpback Whales can be seen off the Mendonoma Coast in the summer and fall, though not in great numbers. Ron LeValley went out on a boat from Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg and came across two Humpbacks. And they came very close to the boat, obviously curious about the boat filled with people. Ron says they were spouted on several times and he had to clean his camera lens three times!

 Below is the tail of a diving Humpback.

 And below the Humpback is about to spout. I have a feeling this is one of the times Ron had to clean his camera lens.

And here is a Humpback's barnacle-encrusted tail fins.  Ron says there are two species of barnacles on this whale - the acorn barnacle, Coronula diadema, which is unique to the humpback and the rabbit-eared barnacle, Conchoderma, a kind of stalked or goose-necked barnacle that settles on Coronula.

Below you will see this Humpback Whale is taking a good look at Ron!

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