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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • Humpback whales generally have heavy encrustations of barnacles on their throats, pectoral fins and flukes. Whale barnacles are barnacles belonging to the family Coronulidae. Whale barnacles attach themselves to the bodies of baleen whales during the barnacles's free-swimming larval stage. Though often described as parasites, the relationship is an example of obligate commensalism, as the barnacles neither harm, nor benefit, their host. But they are parasitised by whale lice that are actually amphipods: tiny crustaceans that feed off dead skin and pieces of flesh from their host. In normal situations, population of these parasites seem to stay in check, thereby not hurting their large hosts. Cetacean cyamid species are specific to different species of cetaceans and the one that lives on humpbacks is Cyamus boopis.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet32.jpg
  • This was the photo that won the Mammal Behavior Category in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition in 2002. It wasn’t until after I attended the award ceremony at the Natural History Museum that I discovered that many of the judges were unhappy that it wasn’t awarded the title of the overall winner of the competition, and I subsequently discovered that that was the general public consensus as well. It was unfortunate that the controversy that surrounded the overall winner that year soured such a proud moment in my photographic career. I was contacted a few years later by the new head of the judging panel, Mark Carwardine, to ask for any guidelines for submitting a winning photo, because he felt that my photo was the best entry that year. C’est la vie !<br />
But the moment that can never be diminished or tainted was the moment that I captured the image. I was photographing a bubble net feeding group very near the community of Tenakee Springs, which can be seen to the left of the whale. They came up behind me and I can clearly remember zooming my lens back so that I could fit the entire throat of the whale into the photo, and fortunately I was just able to do that or else it might not have been a perfect award-winning photo.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet33.jpg
  • Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeanglia) lunging during cooperative feeding using a bubble net, Tenakee Inlet, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
This was the photo that won the Mammal Behavior Category in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition in 2002. It wasn’t until after I attended the award ceremony at the Natural History Museum that I discovered that many of the judges were unhappy that it wasn’t awarded the title of the overall winner of the competition, and I subsequently discovered that that was the general public consensus as well. It was unfortunate that the controversy that surrounded the overall winner that year soured such a proud moment in my photographic career. I was contacted a few years later by the new head of the judging panel, Mark Carwardine, to ask for any guidelines for submitting a winning photo, because he felt that my photo was the best entry that year. C’est la vie !<br />
But the moment that can never be diminished or tainted was the moment that I captured the image. I was photographing a bubble net feeding group very near the community of Tenakee Springs, which can be seen to the left of the whale. They came up behind me and I can clearly remember zooming my lens back so that I could fit the entire throat of the whale into the photo, and fortunately I was just able to do that or else it might not have been a perfect award-winning photo.
    Humpback whales.tif
  • I have always loved starfish; they are such emblematic shoreline creatures. There are so many in the rich marine environment of Southeast Alaska, many of them like the sunstars very large. For obvious reasons they are one of the easiest marine creatures to photograph, and this particular species was best photographed on its striking underside. Now that I have my website up at long last I now have the extra incentive to identify the species of all the creatures that I have photographed, which is going to be very challenging especially for the invertebrates.
    Kayaking- Gulf-of-California66.jpg
  • The left eye of the whale in the foreground is clearly visible and shut. The whales are lunging at such close proximity that they usually close their eyes to protect them from any damage, particularly from the flippers that are usually heavily encrusted with barnacles. Whales that are regular members of these teams of bubble net feeders are very distinctive because of all of the scratches inflicted on their bodies by barnacles.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet16.jpg
  • Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, along with their spectacular cooperative feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching ( jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.<br />
This was one of the whales recorded and photographed in the studies of Dr Fred Sharpe, and he had named her “Butterfly” but he hadn’t seen her for a long time. Photographs of the underside markings and colouration of the flukes can be used like a fingerprint to identify individual whales; They can be predominantly black or white with any variation in between, and cuts, scars and barnacle formations can also be used for identification. There are more predominantly white flukes in the southern hemisphere populations than in the north.
    Alaska-humpback-whale-lobtail4.jpg
  • Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and extrovert whales on the surface, making them the ideal whale for whale watching, with the added bonus of their spectacular cooperative bubble net feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching ( jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. It creates a thunderclap noise that can be heard miles away. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.<br />
Photographs of the underside markings and colouration of the flukes can be used like a fingerprint to identify individual whales; they can be predominantly black or white with any variation in between, and cuts, scars and barnacle formations can also be used for identification. There are more predominantly white flukes in the southern hemisphere populations than in the north.
    Alaska-humpback-whale-lobtail5.jpg
  • Humpback whales love to breach; of that there is no doubt. They are the champion breachers of all whales and can continue jumping for an hour or more. Sometimes they jump completely clear of the water and either fall backwards or on their sides with a resounding thud that reverberates around the surrounding mountains. It is exhilarating to watch and it always leaves you begging for more. It is the most frustrating and challenging behavior to try to photograph because you could never be sure when and where they will jump next, so there are always plenty of surprises in store. It became the holy grail of my whale photography, and more often than not I was left empty-handed, but exhilarated. On so many occasions when I was prepared for the shot they failed to jump and likewise on so many occasions when I wasn’t ready, they jumped; they always kept me guessing, and hoping.<br />
There are many possible reasons for breaching that are similar to those for lobtailing including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation as I have witnessed on many an occasion; what better way could there be for celebrating your power and size than leaping out of the water and making a whale-sized splash! They often seem to do in the morning as if going for a morning jog, and they sometimes breach in synchronization with other whales, which is often associated with cooperative herding and feeding.
    Alaska-humpback-whale-breach2.jpg
  • Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, with the additional bonus of their spectacular cooperative bubble net feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching (jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. It creates a thunderclap noise that can be heard miles away. Actually on this occasion it was a cow and a calf lobtailing together, and the calf is often the instigator for play: they kept this up for about half an hour. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.
    Alaska-humpback-whale-lobtail3.jpg
  • Lunge-feeding humpback whale (Megaptera novaeanglia), Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
I became very familiar with the individual whales that made up the cooperative bubblenet feeding groups. I could identify them by their flukes, markings on their throats, barnacles and even sometimes by the sounds they made.<br />
I had known Dr Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation for many years during his research into the cooperative bubble net feeding strategies employed by the humpback whales of Southeast Alaska. He was particularly interested in the genetic relatedness of individual whales within and between cooperative pods, in addition to the local genetic sub-structuring of the population. He discovered that social foraging humpback whale pods possess a social complexity that is rarely observed in baleen whales. For example, individuals within these groups may develop long-term associations that may last for many years. There also appears to be a division of labour, with particular whales constantly leading the group, deploying the bubble nets, and producing the feeding calls. Furthermore, on each lunge, each whale in the group maintains the same position, indicating that this is an intrinsically choreographed feeding maneuver. My own personal observations with the same feeding groups over the course of the summer also bore this out. I observed how there were always core members of a group but other individual whales appeared to join them on a much more ad hoc basis before moving off again.<br />
He ascertained that it is only the more elusive, shoaling prey, such as Pacific herring, that require the same level of cooperative cohesiveness; easier prey such as krill do not require the same sophisticated feeding strategies as do shoaling fish.
    Humpback whales-4-2.tif
  • Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) lobtailing, Frederick Sound, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, with additional bonus of their spectacular cooperative bubble net feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching (jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. It creates a thunderclap noise that can be heard miles away. Actually on this occasion it was a cow and a calf lobtailing together, and the calf is often the instigator for play: they kept this up for about half an hour. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.
    Alaska-humpback-whale-lobtail2.jpg
  • I became very familiar with the individual whales that made up the cooperative bubblenet feeding groups. I could identify them by their flukes, markings on their throats, barnacles and even sometimes by the sounds they made.<br />
I had known Dr Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation for many years during his research into the cooperative bubble net feeding strategies employed by the humpback whales of Southeast Alaska. He was particularly interested in the genetic relatedness of individual whales within and between cooperative pods, in addition to the local genetic sub-structuring of the population. He discovered that social foraging humpback whale pods possess a social complexity that is rarely observed in baleen whales. For example, individuals within these groups may develop long-term associations that may last for many years. There also appears to be a division of labour, with particular whales constantly leading the group, deploying the bubble nets, and producing the feeding calls. Furthermore, on each lunge, each whale in the group maintains the same position, indicating that this is an intrinsically choreographed feeding maneuver. My own personal observations with the same feeding groups over the course of the summer also bore this out. I observed how there were always core members of a group but other individual whales appeared to join them on a much more ad hoc basis before moving off again.<br />
He ascertained that it is only the more elusive, shoaling prey, such as Pacific herring, that require the same level of cooperative cohesiveness; easier prey such as krill do not require the same sophisticated feeding strategies as do shoaling fish.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet15.jpg
  • Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, with the additional bonus of their spectacular cooperative bubble net feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching (jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. It creates a thunderclap noise that can be heard miles away. Actually on this occasion it was a cow and a calf lobtailing together, and the calf is often the instigator for play: they kept this up for about half an hour. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.
    Alaska-humpback-whale-lobtail1.jpg
  • This was the "Famous Five" group of bubble netters that I became so familiar with around the Morris Reef at Point Hayes. I became familiar with all of their physical differences like the colouration and markings under their throats. The one on the left was the most distinctive with its pink throat and the circular scars where barnacles had dropped off; it was always one of the lead whales that lunged vertically. Humpback whales are usually identified by the distinctive colouration, markings and scars on the ventral side of the flukes. I could also identify them by the distinctive sound of each blow: some are more explosive: some more guttural: some sound like a ricochet: some are more like sneezes.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet7.jpg