Lunge feeding whales MUG us and much more!
- Bob Perry
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
2025 04–05 SB Channel
Blue skies and flat, calm seas prevailed all day in The Channel. We saw great island vistas from Anacapa to San Miguel. The total sightings for two trips (9 AM and 12 noon): 24 humpback whales, 300 California sea lions, and 1075 common dolphins.
The same birdnado/whale/dolphin hotspot that we reported yesterday was still active 8 miles from shore today. In the morning, 20 humpback whales were actively surface lunge feeding on the hotspot. We saw pairs, trios, quads, and as many as six humpbacks vertically lunging simultaneously and in a cooperative/coordinated fashion. It is one of the most dramatic and spine tingling thing you can ever see anywhere in nature.
It went on for our entire visit. Also feeding alongside the birds and whales, we had a large group of ever vocal California sea lions and at least 1000 dolphins that were not so vocal. The whales made several close approaches to the Condor Express and two of them came over and mugged us for quite a while (see today’s photo for an example).
The humpback whales had spread out quite a bit when we came back on the noon excursion. We were able to closely watch four, which was a trio plus one at first. They soon reformed into two pairs and began actively socializing with close body contact swimming, rolling around and vocalization. There were also about 75 dolphins in the area.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry