Tim writes: catching a Humpback Whale lunge-feeding is a lot harder than it looks as you can’t usually predict when and where they will appear. But I was on a boat in the Johnstone Strait off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island where the water was clearly teeming with fish. Seabirds were in abundance and this individual Humpback Whale repeatedly crashed through the surface with his mouth wide open, immediately preceded by terrified fish breaking cover and being snatched by birds. To enable the whale to take in enormous amounts of water and fish, the lower jaw has expandable grooves that enables the whale’s throat to inflate like a giant beach ball. The name Rorqual is sometimes used for baleen whales and comes from a Norwegian term meaning “Ridged Whale”, because of the ridges on the throat. The baleen plates are just visible like a comb edging the upper jaw on the right of the picture, through which they filter out the food.
Taken with Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 70-300mm at 240mm 1/400 f9 ISO 800
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