One fun aspect of shooting by San Francisco Bay is that you get a lot of wildlife while you are killing time. Roger and I were sitting by the shore waiting for a few movements when a bird started flying in our direction. We both paid attention when we realized that it was not a gull as is normally the case. Instead, it was an osprey. They are not a rarity but they are still noteworthy. It certainly wasn’t bothered by us as it flew right over us as it headed along the shoreline. Looking up you could stare straight into its eyes as it surveyed the scene looking for its next snack. Sadly, nothing was nearby for it to dive onto and it flew off. Even so, a brief moment like this with such a cool bird made me happy for a long time afterwards. Actually, I am still happy when I think about it.
My like for the cormorant is no secret if you read this blog. I think they are a cool bird with a prehistoric look to them. One thing I enjoy when seeing them is watching the way they take off from the water’s surface. They run across the water getting some speed up as they flap. I have wanted to get good shots of this for ages but they usually do it a fair distance from the shore. When they onshore, they launch from whatever they are on. Fortunately, when out whale watching, we got a cormorant that was very close to the boat before it decided to take off. I happened to be looking the right way at the time and got something close to what I had been after. It was backlit but still close. I’ll still be hoping for something better but this was a good result for me.
This seems to be a really good year for sea life. Having had a really successful trip out watching whales from Monterey Bay, the whales have decided to come closer. There have been sightings of humpbacks inside San Francisco Bay this year. More recently, my friend Roger has seen them feeding on the coast just south of the city. I joined him for a while. We could see a number of the humpbacks lunge feeding just off the beach. They were a little far from us but we still had a good view.
The whales start below the surface and surge upwards with their mouths open grabbing a mouth full of water and fish. They then spot out the water and eat the remnants. We found that the seagulls were the guide to where the whales would be next. They would mill around, awaiting the next feeding, hoping to get a spare fish in the process. As they spotted the whale coming to the surface, they would all converge and this would be the guide to where the whale would be next. Sometimes, the whale was just coming up for breath so you never knew which it would be. When there is only one whale, it tends to alternate although not always. With more than one, it is a guess.
A few days later, I was out with Nancy and we decided to see if there was any activity. The previous spot was not showing any sign of whales inshore. A couple of spouts further out but nothing feeding in the shallows. Instead we tried Pacifica where they sometimes come in near the pier. Again, nothing. We were just starting to drive off when I saw what appeared to be a spout inshore. I parked up and wandered over to see if there was anything. Nancy stayed in the car but knew something was up when she saw me turn and run back to the car. A whale was in the surf feeding.
We moved along the beach watching the whale burst to the surface and grab mouthfuls of water and fish. A lot of people quickly gathered to watch the feeding. The birds were still the clue but now we were down on the level of the waves so sometimes things got obscured by the water. Even so, we were right there to see what was going on. Soon the whale appeared to be full and moved offshore. It was still swimming around near the pier when we headed off. I don’t know whether this was a regular feature or we got lucky but it was very cool to watch.
Tail slapping wasn’t the only thing that the humpbacks were doing a lot of. Waving with a flipper was also going on a lot. I don’t know what this means but it is cool to see because it makes it seem like the whales are waving at you. Since they are underwater when they do it and can’t see you, they obviously aren’t bothered by our presence but who cares? It feels like you are being waved at!
I am always amazed by the places that sea lions can get to. They can be found on man made structures or rocky outcrops all the time. They will sleep in any space. How they find their way there without harming themselves is a mystery. They do though. Any surface will probably have a sea lion on it taking a nap.
Once a year, a rodeo is held a short distance from our house. I have never been to a rodeo before. Anyone who knows me would not think of me as a western kind of guy. Despite all of that, I was quite interested to see what it was like. I had missed the previous two events so thought I should make the effort this time. It was on over a Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. I went on the Friday because it was less disruptive to the weekend and it included bull riding which I thought would be dramatic to see.
I got there a little early to have a look around. It turns out that I left more time than needed to check everything out so I found a seat in the bleachers to wait for things to start. I got a visit from the management since I obviously looked a little out of place. They guy asked me a few questions but I think he was struggling with my accent and gradually got bored. I thought it was rather empty but, just as the riding started, tons of people showed up and it was pretty full.
More posts will follow with some of the action shots.
I have never heard of Risso’s dolphins before. There are so many species of dolphin, you would have to be an expert to know them all but you do hear of many of them. Not so with this one for me. Once you find yourself in the middle of a bunch of them, though, you suddenly are terribly familiar with them. They were not a terribly sociable bunch at first but we hung around for a while and they gradually got more relaxed with us nearby.
As they age, they apparently get a lot lighter in color. A few of the dolphins were very light and, with the water being so calm, we were able to see them even when they were submerged. The group was a decent size and we would have some of them visible most of the time. They weren’t as keen on getting well out of the water but we did have some that would pop out and breach every once in a while. Being pointing in the right direction with the camera when it happened, though, was another thing.
The focus of a trip like the one we took with Monterey Bay Whale Watch is to see the whales. However, you can always come across some other creatures as you go on your way. Heading back in to the marina, we passed a Sea Otter mother and her pup. She was diving on food and leaving the pup to bob up on the surface. She would bring some food and then dive down. I was up at the front of the boat when we saw them. The early evening light looked great on them. Of course, as we passed them, our shadow took the good light off them just when they were in the best location to get a shot. I did head to the back of the boat as we stopped to see if I could get some other shots. We soon left them to their thing, though.
While we did not get a lot of breaching from the humpbacks, there was a lot of tail slapping going on. We would see something off in the distance and head that way to see if we could get close before the whale got bored and decided to do something else. Thankfully, they often didn’t. Getting good shots of the slapping proved to be harder than I thought. The splash they cause is impressive but you don’t know why when you look at the shot. For all the viewer knows, it could just be a whale sticking its tail up in the air.
Fortunately, I did get lucky with some shots when close in with the whale really throwing its fluke around. The drama of watching all of this is hard to portray in the photos and sometimes it was one of those experiences when it was better to stop trying to get the photo, to put the camera down and to watch these huge creatures throwing themselves around in the ocean in front of you.
Orcas are cool. No avoiding it, they are a great looking whale. We spent a lot of time with this group on our tour with Monterey Bay Whale Watch. Because they kept offering up good opportunities to interact with them, we followed them a long way up the coast. We ended up off Davenport which meant, when we turned back, we had a long way to go to get back to Monterey. However, it was worth it. As we got further away from the normal whale watching boats and the group got more used to us, they got more relaxed.
We occasionally got ahead of them at which point they would swim towards us, sometimes crossing right behind the boat. At times like this, the team on the boat would drop a towed housing off the back with a GoPro mounted in it. They got some cracking footage as the whales got curious about the line and took a look at the camera. Meanwhile, we got to see them at very close quarters. It was so cool.
Getting good shots of the whales was trickier than I expected. They stay down for irregular times and predicting where they will pop up is hard. If you don’t get them coming out of the water, the head quickly dipped back under which makes for a far less impressive shot. You want to see the head and get the black and white patterns on display.
When you have a few hours with the whales, though, sooner or later you will get some good shots. This blog does not need to see the number of shots that are the same and only show the back of a whale as it heads back below the surface. The ones with the head visible and the ones that will be shared. Trust me, though. There are a lot of shots of the backs of whales with no visible head.
The boat team weren’t the only ones that took some video. I also shot a bunch of video as we went. Some of it was unusable as a result of the movement of the boat. Other clips were no use because I was looking in the wrong direction and the whales weren’t doing what I anticipated – don’t they know what I need? However, I still got a few clips that were what I was hoping for.
One fun aspect of shooting by San Francisco Bay is that you get a lot of wildlife while you are killing time. Roger and I were sitting by the shore waiting for a few movements when a bird started flying in our direction. We both paid attention when we realized that it was not a gull as is normally the case. Instead, it was an osprey. They are not a rarity but they are still noteworthy. It certainly wasn’t bothered by us as it flew right over us as it headed along the shoreline. Looking up you could stare straight into its eyes as it surveyed the scene looking for its next snack. Sadly, nothing was nearby for it to dive onto and it flew off. Even so, a brief moment like this with such a cool bird made me happy for a long time afterwards. Actually, I am still happy when I think about it.
