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| Humpback Whale |
The main reason we went to Ólafsvík
was to go Whale watching with Láki Tours. I was excited because I had seen so
many reports of recent trips with Humpbacks, Orcas, Blue Whales and Sperm
Whales. I had seen the first three on other trips: Humpbacks and Orcas many
times, and Blue Whales once in California with Caty.
I was really looking forward to seeing a Sperm Whale, which Láki had been seeing on trips throughout the month. I have never seen one; Scott has.
I was also prepared for a cold, windy, wet, rough trip
because, well, Iceland.
I suited up with my G Adventures parka and lots of warm
gear. Imagine our surprise when the day dawned sunny, calm and warm. I didn’t
know what kind of gear to take.
When the Láki
people opened up (we were the first whale watch of the day), they insisted we
all wear their one-piece jumpsuits so that we would be protected from
inevitable splashes. So, off went the G Adventures parka and on went the suit. With my cameras, I also took
all my waterproof gear.
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| Getting ready to find some Whales |
It turns out it was all unnecessary. The weather stayed warm
and calm. We had no splash and the only wind was when we were traveling
quickly. Most of the time I was comfortable and some of the time I was warm. Scott spent the whole trip with the top of the jumpsuit off and hanging around his waist.
Oh, and before we even got on the boat, I had a wildlife sighting: pretty little Moon Jellies in the harbor ...
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| Moon Jelly and friend |
It was a gorgeous, glorious day. Now, we just needed Whales.
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| Snæfellsjökull from Breiðarfjörður |
And, we got them. A number of Humpbacks (I can’t remember
how many, maybe eight). While they didn’t do anything spectacular – no breaching,
no tail slapping, no spy-hopping – they did swim rather close to the boat on
several occasions.
There was a great deal of fluking (diving with the tale up
for leverage) ...
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| Humpbacks are showy: they fluke up quite a bit |
... and lots of round-up diving (bending the back without fluking – the
inspiration behind the name “Humpback”) ...
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| The traditional "humped" Humpback |
The coolest thing that happened was,
fortunately, after I had gone up to the top deck to get a different perspective
on some Humpbacks. One swam up to and under our boat. I could see its entire
outline through the clear blue-green water. It was amazing to see and I
captured it fairly well with my camera.
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| You can clearly see the entire Humpback Whale |
I am not going to write much about Humpbacks, because I just
recently covered them in my blog about Maui. I am also not going to write about Orcas because we didn’t see any.
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| Orcas, Alaska |
That was a bit of a
surprise because Orcas are kind of Láki’s
thing. Their winter Orca sightings were why Caty and I went to Iceland in 2015
(but we didn’t see any) and the reason several of our fellow watchers on this
trip had booked. I wasn’t too disappointed because I have seen them before,
including some incredible sightings last year in Alaska (do I have a great life
or what?).
I am sure some people were disappointed, but the other sightings
made up for it.
What were they?
Well, the captain and a crew member saw one Minke Whale, but we didn’t. So, I
am not counting that.
As we were
heading out into and back from Breiðarfjörður, we saw a pod (or two pods) of
White-beaked Dolphins. These are feisty critters, swimming and cavorting around
the boat as we skimmed through the water. They even had babies with them.
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| Mama and baby White-beaked Dolphins (see the baby's white "beak?") |
Of course,
there were birds: a nice, sun-shiny close view of Atlantic Puffins as they swam …
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| Atlantic Puffin |
… and then
struggled to take off, as Puffins do ...
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| He finally got off the water, but it took forever |
There were
graceful Arctic Terns, flying and fishing (look closely at its beak; it’s
taking lunch home) …
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| Arctic Tern with a tiny fish |
Black-legged Kittiwakes, almost as graceful as the Terns ...
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| A Black-legged Kittiwake making a landing |
Northern Fulmars
were everywhere, some flying right over the bow, practically begging me to take
their picture) …
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| A soaring Northern Fulmar |
Common Murres ...
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| Common Murre on the turquoise water |
And, I got
another – and a better – look at some Razorbills …
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| What a cool-looking bird |
But coolest of
all was Blue Whales. Yes, Blue Whales, five or six of them over the course of
the trip. The first one was pretty far away and I was concerned that it was
going to be one of those trips where you saw a lot, but it was all distant (this
was before we saw the very-up-close Humpbacks).
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| Blue Whale!! |
But, then, one surprised us
(and, apparently the captain) by surfacing right by the boat.
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| This one surfaced close |
Right by the boat.
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| Right by the boat! |
It got better
after that. There were Blue Whales everywhere. What a treat. I had
previously seen four off the coast of California near Channel Islands National Park. These five-six we saw were Scott’s first. Just
six years ago, I thought I would never see one. Now, I was up to nine or ten!
So, let’s talk
about Blue Whales …
Blue Whales
Blue Whale are generally difficult to see because they don’t
usually come too far out of the water. In fact, even though I had seen Blue
Whales before, this was the first time I had ever seen the fluke – and it was a
brief glimpse.
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| The elusive Blue Whale fluke |
They are long (very – about 100 ft.) and sleek with a very small
dorsal fin and long, thin pectoral flippers, and a distinctive U-shaped mouth.
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| A tiny dorsal fin |
Their mottled blue-grey back is
distinctive for each whale and it is their skin pattern that is used for
identification (as opposed to Humpback Whales, which are identified by their
unique fluke patterns).
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| Each skin pattern is distinctive |
The largest animal to EVER live on Earth, the Blue Whale is
about twice as long as a T-Rex dinosaur and weighs 100-150 tons. Calves are
about 25 ft. long and weigh the same as an adult African elephant. Females are
generally a few feet longer than males, but males have slightly heavier muscles
and bones.
The Blue Whale’s
average life span is 85 years, although 110
years has been confirmed for at least one Blue Whale.
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| I would love to see one from above; Photo: Kalpana Mishra.2il.org |
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| Northern Fulmar checking out a Blue Whale |
Ardent travelers, Blue Whales annually migrate to cold
waters to feed and then to warmer waters to breed and look after their young.
They eat very little while traveling and survive mostly on their blubber
reserves for up to four months at a time.
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| Illustration: Encyclopædia Britannica |
Blue Whales are rorqual Whales, a family of baleen Whales
with pleated throat grooves that expand when they take in water while feeding
(other members of the family are Humpback, Fin, Bryde's, Sei and Minke Whales). Baleen, hard plates of keratin edged with long fringe-like hair, occurs in ridges
on the roof of the Whale’s mouth.
Blue Whales can have 300-800 baleen plates. Ironically, the largest animal on the planet survives by
eating one of the smallest. Blue Whales eat mainly krill, a tiny shrimp-like
creature found in huge swarms in the ocean. A single Blue Whale can eat as many
as 40 million krill a day – that’s two-four tons. Because krill move, Blue Whales typically feed at depths of more than 300 ft. during the day and only
surface-feed at night. Dive times are typically 10 minutes when feeding,
although dives of up to 21 minutes are possible. The Whale feeds by lunging
forward at groups of krill, taking the animals and a large quantity of water
into its mouth.
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| It is rare to see anything other than the Blue Whale's back |
The water is then squeezed out through the baleen plates by
pressure from the ventral pouch and tongue. Once the mouth is clear of water,
the remaining krill, unable to pass through the plates, are swallowed. The Blue
Whale also incidentally consumes small fish, crustaceans and squid caught up
with krill.
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| You can see the twin blowholes |
Blue Whales have twin blowholes shielded by a large
splashguard. When surfacing to breathe, the Blue Whale raises its "shoulder" and
blowhole farther out of the water than other large Whales. Its blow is a vertical single-column
spout, typically 30 ft. high, but reaching up to 39 ft.
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| Blue Whale blow |
Preferring to live in deep ocean waters, Blue Whales are
rarely seen close to shore. In the Southern Hemisphere, small populations
remain in the Antarctic, as well as parts of the Indian Ocean. In the Northern
Hemisphere, they can be seen in the northeast Pacific from Alaska to Costa Rica
as well the North Atlantic near Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Greenland and Iceland.
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| Illustration: seethewild.com |
Blue Whales can reach speeds of 30 mph over short bursts,
usually when interacting with other whales, but 12 mph is a more typical
traveling speed. When feeding, they slow down to 3 mph, which is equivalent to
a medium-brisk walk.
Blue Whales typically swim at a depth of about 45 ft. when
migrating in order to eliminate drag from surface waves. But, they can dive; the deepest confirmed
dive is 1,660 ft.
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| Getting ready to dive |
At one time, there may have been as many as 350,000 Blue
Whales. Almost rendered extinct by whaling and industrial hazards, there are
now only 10,000 to 25,000 left.
The Blue Whale was too fast and powerful for the 19th
century whalers to hunt, but with the arrival of harpoon cannons, they became a
much-sought-after species for their large amounts of blubber. Soon, Blue Whales
were being hunted off Iceland (1883), the Faroe Islands (1894), Newfoundland
(1898) and Svalbard (1903). In 1904-05 the first Blue Whales were taken off
South Georgia. By 1925, with the advent of the stern slipway in factory ships
and the use of steam-driven whale catchers, the catch of Blue Whales, and
baleen whales as a whole, began to increase dramatically. The killing reached a
peak in 1931 when 29,649 Blue Whales were taken. By 1966, they were so scarce
that the International Whaling Commission declared them protected throughout
the world. Today, they are still considered an endangered species.
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| Illustration: NOAA Fisheries |
The earliest known modern Blue Whale is a partial skull
fossil found in southern Italy, dating to between 1.25 and 1.49 million years
ago. That Whale is estimated to have been between 75 and 85 ft. long,
overturning a previous hypothesis that
baleen whales rapidly reached their modern sizes at 300,000 years ago. Now, it
is believed that they changed more gradually around 3.6 million years ago,
possibly earlier.
Due to their enormous size, power and speed, adult Blue Whales have virtually no natural predators.
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| A close-by Blue Whale |
There are several documented cases
of Orcas attempting to take a Blue Whale: one off Baja California where the Orcas didn’t kill the Whale
outright, but it died later of injuries; one off California where an Orca pod harassed a Blue Whale and bit off the tip of its fluke, causing the
Whale to tail slap the Orca; and one in Monterey Bay where the Orcas
swam in a line up to the Blue Whale's side.
Blue Whales may be
wounded, sometimes fatally, after colliding with ocean vessels, as well as
becoming trapped or entangled in fishing gear.
Climate change may create problems for Blue Whales because
they migrate based on ocean temperature. The change in ocean temperature could
also affect the Blue Whale's food supply if decreased salinity levels caused by
glacial melt changes krill location and abundance.
So, after a virtual festival of Humpback and Blue Whales, it
was time to go back. As we accelerated, we heard a loud slap behind us. We
turned around to see a White-beaked Dolphin breaching. And it jumped and jumped
and jumped. It was an amazing sight.
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| Acrobatic White-beaked Dolphin |
Now, I had seen White-beaked Dolphins before: once by our
ship on my first visit to Norway in 2014 and once in fjord outside of Tromsø on this trip. Both times I got
photos that required a forensic scientist to interpret. Not this time. I got a
lot of good pictures and so did Scott, who saw some much closer than I did (we
were at different places on the boat).
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| A close-up view; Photo: Scott Stevens |
White-beaked Dolphins
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| White-beaked Dolphins are toothed whales, similar to Orcas |
The White-beaked Dolphin is technically a “toothed whale,”
like other Dolphins, Orcas and Sperm Whales.
Adults can reach 7½ to 10 ft. long and weigh 400 to 780 lbs.
Calves are 3½ to 4 ft. long at birth and weigh about 88 lbs. The upper body and
flanks are dark grey with light grey patches, including a “saddle” behind the
dorsal fin, while the underside is light grey to almost white. The
flippers, fluke and the dorsal fin are all a darker grey than the body. As the
common name implies, the beak is usually white, but it may be a dark, ashy
grey, in some older individuals.
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| Mama and baby acrobatics |
White-Beaked Dolphins have 25 to 28 teeth in each jaw,
although the three teeth closest to the front of the mouth are often not
visible, failing to erupt from the gums. They have up to 92 vertebrae, more
than any other species of oceanic dolphin.
Although the young are born with two to four whiskers on each side of the upper lip, these disappear as they grow, and the adults are entirely hairless.
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| Swimming in tandem |
The humerus bone of the right flipper is
longer and more robust than the one on the left, indicating that, like people, White-beaked Dolphins tend to be right-handed.
The White-beaked Dolphin is endemic to the cold temperate
and subarctic waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, most commonly in seas less
than 3,000 ft. deep.
They are found in a band stretching across the ocean from
Cape Cod, the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and southern Greenland in the west,
around Iceland in the center and across in the west from northern France to
Svalbard (but we didn't see any in Svalbard).
They are most commonly found on the Labrador Shelf close to
southwestern Greenland, around Iceland, off the northern and eastern coasts of
Britain and off the coast of Norway.
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| White-beaked Dolphins have distinctive coloring |
They are not well adapted to truly arctic
conditions, which makes them more vulnerable to predators, most notably Polar Bears.
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| A small pod |
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| A big leap |
Population, breeding patterns and life expectancy are unknown, although several hundred
thousand White-beaked Dolphins are estimated. They are more densely populated in the eastern North Atlantic than
the west.
White-beaked Dolphins feed predominantly on fish,
particularly cod, haddock and whiting. Social animals, they are most commonly
found in groups of less than 10, but sometimes in much larger associations of more
than 100.
Described as “acrobatic,” they frequently ride the bow wave
of high-speed boats and jump clear of the sea's surface.
That is for sure!
Although
they are normally much slower, they can swim at up to 20 mph and can dive 150
ft. deep.
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| Bow wave riding |
They are social feeders and often feed with Orcas and Fin and Humpback
Whales, as well as with other Dolphin species.
A Great Trip
So, it was an extraordinary Whale watch, with beautiful
skies, blue water, Humpback Whales, White-beaked Dolphins, seabirds and Blue
Whales. No Orcas or Sperm Whales, which, of course, were seen later that week on other whale watches. Sometimes it might be better NOT to see reports of other trips!
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| Humpback fluke |
Now, I wish I had planned another day or two and gone out a
couple of more times. But, Scott had other stuff he wanted to do. And, that’s
in the next (and final of this series) blog.
Trip date: June 15-July 4, 2019
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