Capturing the Moment

   A month ago I posted about seeing the first baby humpback whale this winter season here in Hawaii. Since then I have spotted many more mom and calf pairs around the island of Maui. It is pretty amazing to think that these mother whales swim all the way here from Alaska , pregnant, then give birth to a baby the size of a small pickup truck, go on to feed it gallons of fat rich milk every day, all while not eating anything herself. With all of this effort the moms are putting into the calves it is nice to see plump, healthy, well fed calves jumping and playing.  Whenever I see baby humpbacks breaching or slapping their tails, I wonder if they are just learning the moves needed for communication once they get older, or if it really just for fun. We came across this baby whale and watched it breach over and over. Finally when it stopped breaching it just changed behavior and started tail slapping over and over. Mom was always nearby and I could just picture the baby say...

The Whales are Back     Cruising through Alaska's Inside Passage on a small cruise ship gives me a wonderful opportunity to photograph whales. The usual suspects of the whale watching world up here at Humpbacks, Orca, and Dall's porpoise. Every once in a while a minke whale joins in the feeding frenzy but they are quite rare to see. We are coming into the thick of whale season here in the Northern feeding grounds. Nearly 22 hours of light provide almost unlimited growing potential to the phytoplankton that start the marine food web. As the phytoplankton photosynthesizes and grows in number, the zooplankton (like krill) are able to sustain a huge population, which in turns feeds the humpbacks. They have to eat enough to sustain themselves only off of their food stores in their blubber once they head back south to the tropical breeding grounds.    Orca Tail Slap    The orca and porpoise rely less on the season, and are able to stay here...