Seabird and Whale Trip to Jeffrey's Ledge
Newburyport Whale Watch/Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats
July 6, 2009

Various photos from a very nice day on the water!

Greater Shearwater

Greater and Sooty shearwaters

And a Cory's Shearwater in the background

Sooty Shearwater

Lots of Northern Gannets, including these two hitching a ride

Well over 4000 Wilson's Storm-Petrels for the day

The stars of the show were the Humpback Whales, especially the two females bubble-feeding right next to the boat!

The whales blow clouds or curtains of bubbles underwater to confuse or concentrate schools of fish

and then rise through the fish, mouths agape

They close their mouths, trapping the fish and water within the huge cavity
created by the expanded throat pleats.

And then force out the water through their baleen plates, retaining the fish

Another view of the bulging, pleated underside, complete with barnacles

You could see the fish trying to escape.

A whale needs one heck of a lot of these tiny fish in a day!

But, as we all know, what goes in must come out -

whether from a Humpback,

or a Sooty Shearwater.

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