Our day was with 19 Orca, Humpback, & Puffins. Before we even left the dock I was pointing out wildlife. A trio of River Otters looked to be up to some mischief in their outing. The first tour was down near Dungeness on the Olympic Penninsula. We were with a group of three plus pods that added up to a total of 19 whales. They were in a playful mood, tail lobbing, breaching, and enjoying their day as were we.
We also saw some Harbor Porpoise, Stellar Sea Lions and lots of sea birds. The water was mirror calm much of the way and a low roll over the rest.
On our second tour, my guests opted to see Tufted Puffins, which also put us in the area of lunge feeding Minke Whale and Humpback Whale. We saw the Minke several times, but it was the Humpback we were focused on while he was lunging. My guest was shooting a 500mm prime lens, so her pics are a couple of levels higher in quality than mine. After renting a 500mm prime for a week, I am convinced in the quality.
I got carried away trying to save too many Puffin pics again. After the puffins, we observed several lunges from a Humpback Whale that was zeroing in on bait balls of herring like an archer with a bow and arrow.
In a couple of the Humpback pics, you can see the part of his head that has a bunch of bumps. Those bumps are hair follicles. The expanded throat pleats are so that he can inhale so much water and fish and then close his mouth and filter out the water through the baleen.
Beautiful day.
Check out some of my other photoblog pages at Whale Tales.
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