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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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  • The sphagnum moss is so thick in places in the muskeg, and often beautiful shades of red and pink. Walking on it is like walking on snow because you leave such deep footprints as it springs beneath your feet. I didn't like to leave too many ugly footprints in such a pristine miniaturised environment of dwarf plants. The muskeg always invites closer inspection to discover the variety of berry-producing plants at ground level.
    Alaska-vegetation19.jpg
  • The sphagnum moss is so thick in places in the muskeg, and often beautiful shades of red and pink. Walking on it is like walking on snow because you leave such deep footprints as it springs beneath your feet. I didn't like to leave too many ugly footprints in such a pristine miniaturised environment of dwarf plants. The muskeg always invites closer inspection to discover the variety of berry-producing plants at ground level.
    Alaska-vegetation18.jpg
  • Myanmar-Burma-children24.jpg
  • Myanmar-Burma-children23.jpg
  • Puerto-Princesa-festivals19.tif
  • Puerto-Princesa-festivals18.tif
  • The colour pink representing the colour of the balayong blossom is the prevailing colour for the barangay floats during the Balayong Festival as this eccentric looking participant clearly demonstrates.
    BalayongFestival-19.tif
  • One of my primary objectives for the trip and for paddling as far south as La Paz was to dive with California sea lions at a well publicised haul out at a small island called Los Islotes, near Isla Partida, just to the north of La Paz. California sea lions are smaller than the enormous Steller sea lions that I was so fondly familiar with in Alaska. I have had so many close, entertaining and interactive encounters with those clowns of the sea and now at long last I had the opportunity to experience their antics underwater, where they are transformed from being lumbering mounds of blubber to agile, graceful underwater dancers. Los Islotes is a pink crest of rock sticking abruptly out of the sea with numerous ledges around its base as if it had been purpose-built for sea lions to sunbathe and loll around on.
    Kayaking- Gulf-of-California34.jpg
  • It is a deciduous shrub growing to 4-metre (13 ft) tall with bright green shoots with an angular cross-section. The flowers are small bell-shaped yellow-white to pinkish-white with pink. The fruit is an edible red to orange berry. It can produce prodigious quantities of fruit when it gets enough sun. It grows as an understory plant, thriving on decaying woody material in the soil. Often you’ll see them growing out of the top of rotting stumps, feeding on the remnants of old timber. The bushes will tolerate rather deep shade, but under those conditions they tend to be somewhat spindly and don’t produce much fruit. This was my favourite berry to make into a sauce to have with my multi-grain pancakes nearly every morning to fuel me up for a long hard day kayaking with the whales. It has a very distinctive tart taste that makes excellent jam and jelly. They weren't as widely available as blueberries so I always tried to remember where the best patches were located, and this was the best patch near one of my regular campsites at Point Hayes in Chatham Strait. Indigenous peoples of North America found the plant and its fruit very useful.The bright red, acidic berries were used extensively for food throughout the year. Fresh berries were eaten in large quantities, or used for fish bait because of the slight resemblance to salmon eggs. Berries were also dried for later use. Dried berries were stewed and made into sauces, or mixed with salmon roe and oil to eat at winter feasts.
    Southeast-Alaska-huckleberry1.jpg
  • Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeanglia) lunging during cooperative feeding using a bubble net, the Morris Reef, Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
This was the same cooperative bubble net feeding group of 5 whales that frequented the Morris Reef and I had many close encounters with. This photo clearly illustrates the structure and function of the baleen plates hanging from the roof of the whales’ mouth; they are smooth on the outside and frayed and bristly on the inside, thus creating a dense mat of coarse hairs to prevent any prey from escaping. The clearly defined palette in the roof of the mouth is also visible as is the common, distinctive pink “moustache” marking on the snout.
    Humpback whales-18.tif
  • Sphagnum moss changing colour in autumn with dwarf blueberry, Port Houghton, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
The lush, thick, spongy sphagnum bogs became a colourful delight of edible colour during the autumn; I never expected to see moss change to such vivid shades of red and pink, like a soft, spongy dessert beneath my feet.
    vegetation-5.tif
  • Colourful grass and false lily-of-the-valley in wet meadow bordering the forest, Port Houghton, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
I was particularly fascinated by all of the different species of wild grasses in Southeast Alaska because in my own country, England, so many of the native wild grasses have been displaced by the all-consuming modern agricultural practices.<br />
This was one of my favourite species because the pink colour change in autumn perfectly complimented the colour transformation of the surrounding sphagnum bogs. I always called this “the Party Photo”, because the colourful grass seems to be erupting from the ground like party poppers.
    vegetation-6.tif
  • Sphagnum moss changing colour in autumn with dwarf blueberry, Port Houghton, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
The lush, thick, spongy sphagnum bogs became a colourful delight of edible colour during the autumn; I never expected to see moss change to such vivid shades of red and pink, like a soft, spongy dessert beneath my feet. The miniature forest beneath my feet was also resplendent with the vivid colours of other plants, like the burning red stems of this bog blueberry plant.
    vegetation-4.tif
  • This photo clearly illustrates how distended the whales’ throat becomes when they lunge to the surface. They can dislocate their jaws like a snake does, and when they first reach the surface their jaws are open almost a full 180 degrees and their throat-poach hangs from their lower jaw like the throat-pouch of a pelican. The colouration of the throats varies and it was another means of identifying individuals. The open ventral pleats of this one appear to be pink because of the lack of pigmentation revealing the blood-rich tissue beneath. They really are a curious sight when their throats are fully distended like that, and they reminded me of Jabba the Hutt from the Star Wars movies.<br />
The formation of this bubble net feeding group also shows how there is always at least one lead whale that surfaces vertically, while the rest appear in a more lateral position around it. The individual whales that are regular members of the feeding group always maintain the same position in the tightly choreographed arrangement during the feeding ascent.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet3.tif
  • This was the cooperative bubble net feeding group of 5 whales that regularly frequented the Morris Reef and I had many close encounters with. This photo clearly illustrates the structure and function of the baleen plates hanging from the roof of the whales’ mouth: they are smooth on the outside and frayed and bristly on the inside, thus creating a dense mat of coarse hairs to prevent any prey from escaping. The clearly defined palette in the roof of the mouth is also visible as is the common, distinctive pink “moustache” marking on the snout.
    Alaska-humpbackwhale-bubblenet12.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
  • Lunga is the largest island in an archipelago of small islands and skerries that stretches roughly 7 kilometres (4.3 m) called the Treshnish Isles. Lunga is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its abundant plant life. Many rare and endangered plants are native to the island. Plants include primrose, birdsfoot trefoil, orchids, sea campion, sea thrift, sea pinks, yellow flags, tormentil and the oyster plant. The Treshnish Isles are also designated as a Special Protection Area due to their importance for breeding seabirds such as storm-petrels, kittiwakes, Manx Shearwaters, guillemots, puffins and fulmars. They are also a marine Special Area of Conservation and grey seals can be found there along with basking sharks, as I was pleased to discover. I particularly enjoyed watching the seabirds nesting on the precipitous cliffs, and a dramatic sea stack called the Harp Rock separated from the island by a narrow passage. It was hypnotic to watch the real masters of flight like the kittiwakes and fulmars launching from their precarious nests and soaring in graceful arcs in front of the cliffs and above the rocks and meadows.<br />
Lunga was populated up until the 19th century, and to the NE of the island, and just around the rocks to the right of this photo can be found the ruins of the village, which was abandoned in 1857. I often used to sit in amongst the ruins looking out across the sea dotted with vegetated skerries towards Mull and the mainland wondering what it must have been like to live there. I camped there for a week, and it was a wonderful place to live during the good weather of the short Scottish summer, but I can imagine how challenging it must have been to eke out a subsistence life there in the past.
    New-Scotland17-Edit.jpg