I Love My Job! An amazing afternoon with lunge feeding fin whales

Hello everyone....what an incredible afternoon!! We only had 1 trip today, and we had a small, lucky group of excited passengers as we made our way to Head Harbour Passage (with 20 knots of NW it was a little too breezy to search offshore). The activity was obvious in the Passage, many active birds groups...all feeding....tonnes of harbour porpoise and lots of blue fin tuna as well. We sighted at least 2 minke whales and 3 fin whales but the best part of the trip was the lunge feeding from the finbacks....so powerful, engulfing huge amount of herring.

Here the fin whale lunged on it's side, note the ventral pleats in the the last few shots.


This lunge was straight up out of the water, again you can see the ventral pleats and even the asymmetrical colouration of the lower jaw (the right hand side is white while the left side is dark brown).



Another lunge feed on the side, with both the pectoral and half of the fluke out of the water.


Thanks so much for checking in today,

Cheers,
Danielle