Happy whalentine's day!

This post is waaaay overdue! Earlier in the season we were lucky to be surrounded by many whales. I finally was able to use my nice telephoto camera to get these shots. Whales are wonderful, smart mammals that learn from each other. For instance, these whales have learned how to create "bubble nets" in the water to hunt for krill. What is a bubble net? Imagine they swim in a circle beneath the surface while creating bubbles through their blowholes  (i.e. their nose) on the top of their head, and then those bubbles rise up to the surface. Krill can get caught within that circular screen of bubbles.  Now, the pattern is are actually more spiral-shaped, but there are many other bubble net shapes also!

The humpback whales near station seem to do hunt using the bubble nets, but not all whales do!  A research team on station (Ross, Jenny, Ariana, Logan) are studying the whales here, their behavior (such as bubblenet feeding), how related they are and their overall health. Pretty neat!