Juneau: Eagles and humpbacks and orcas, oh my!

From Mt. Roberts -- a bit hazy due to the fires burning in BC.


Orca pod, including a baby which still had some orange to it's white spots, meaning it was only a few weeks old.

Humpback whales performing the rare behavior of "bubble-net fishing"

In Juneau we started the day with a whale watching tour. We started off with a sighting of two bald eagles. Then we saw something which our naturalist said was an incredibly unlikely event -- bubble net fishing by humpback whales. Humpback whales are normally solitary creatures. Mike and I had seen a few from the ship the night before. However, about 5% of humpbacks know how to do this form of fishing. We saw 3 groups of 6-9 humpbacks coming together to go after the herring which were in great abundance in the bay. They would create bubbles to push the herring together, then one of the whales (a female) would start "singing" (we could hear it through a hydrophone, quite an amazing sound!), which would push the herring to the middle of the "net" then the whales would rise up with their huge mouths wide open, swallowing more than 15,000 gallons of water, along with a lot of herring. Then they would breathe on the surface for a bit before diving to do it all over again. One of the most amazing experiences of my life -- I had seen this behavior on tv before, but never though I'd get to see it. We watched them for about an hour, and I probably took 300 pictures. To add icing to the cake, we also saw the pod of orcas with the baby. I'd say we got our money's worth on this whale watching trip! Later we rode the tramway to the top of Mt. Roberts which gave us a great view of Juneau and the port. Juneau itself was fairly unremarkable. Unfortunately in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway the ports are dominated by Caribbean jewelers who have followed the cruise ships. We stuck with the local shops and bought a few trinkets along the way.