Those Amazing Singing Whales!

Who else can make fishing nets out of bubbles, turn 40-ton backflips, and hold concerts under water?

Image by natalielucier via Flickr

“KEEP your eyes on that light-green slick to the right of the boat!” There was a rush to that side of the boat, and I was just in time to see the huge gaping mouth shoot up through the center of the slick. As it took in a couple of barrelfuls of water, the pleated throat ballooned out under the weight of its load. The upper jaw, its curtain of fringed baleen plates hanging down like an oversized broom, closed over the pool just engulfed.

I had just seen a humpback whale grab a bite to eat.

Two hours earlier, some 30 passengers and crew had sailed from Gloucester, Massachusetts, on the Daunty II for a day of whale watching. Mason Weinrich, director of the Cetacean Research Unit located there, and author of Observations: The Humpback Whales of Stellwagen Bank, had made some general comments about the humpbacks. We had seen some of their spouts in the distance, and a few closer to us had arched up for a breath of air. And those knobs so noticeable on the humpback’s head? Hair follicles, we were told. Each one contains one or two short hairs, believed to act as sensors, like a cat’s whiskers.

Then came Weinrich’s sudden cry that halted all inquiries and sent us scrambling to the right side of the boat and to our first close-range view of a humpback feeding. It was only the beginning of the excitement. After all, it takes several bites to fill a stomach that holds 1,300 pounds (590 kg)!

“Where we are, here on the Stellwagen Bank,” Weinrich said, “the humpbacks feed primarily on sand lance, a small fast-swimming baitfish. In order to capture them in sufficient numbers, the humpback uses a strategy known as bubble clouding. The whale releases a blast of bubbles underwater that surfaces as a large, light-green slick. Just what this does is not known. Maybe it confuses or concentrates the sand lance or disguises the whale. Whatever it does, it works. Some 10 or 20 seconds after the bubble cloud appears on the surface, the whale comes up in the center of the slick with mouth agape, as you’ve just seen.”