Only 1-minute long, shows what it’s like to try to photograph humpback whales bubblenet feeding, while listening to their communications through the hydrophone!
I’ve never tried this, but this is actually really amazing, especially when knowing the coordination that’s going on among the whales to fish a school of fish this way! The fisheye lens makes them look further away than they really are.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFUCKRJPNCY]Humpback whales bubblenet feeding in Alaska
Published on Aug 15, 2014
This is NOT the best video overall… the real point of this video is to show you how truly hard it is to know where these guys are going to pop up. The coolest part is the sound (from the hydrophone)!
We were in Chatham Strait – just south west of Juneau, Alaska and we were in search of humpback whales who were bubblenet feeding. This cooperative feeding technique is not only unique to humpbacks but also only exhibited by a small number of those that cruise the inside passage of Alaska. Only around 70 of the 20K humpbacks even do this… when they break the surface it’s incredible not only to see but to hear (especially the calls and song as they prepare – Jon had a hydrophone)! There’s a caller, there are bubblers, there are pec flappers (who use the whites of their pectoral fins to help scare / herd the herring into a tighter ball) – they all have a role. But when they break the surface – incredible!
In this video, you can hear their calls (through the hydrophone) and see how difficult it is to predict where they will come up!
If you want to learn a bit more and see some great video as they emerge – check out:http://video.nationalgeographic.com/v…
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