Feb 8 2006 Portland, Victoria. Since our last edition of The Captains Log (Hope Vale project Far Nth Qld Oct 2005) Pelican has resided in Cairns. In November she headed south to her Melbourne base in preparation for a return to Portland in SW Victoria. In January and February 2006 Pelican was working with blue whale scientists Peter Gill and Margy Morrice. The ABC Natural history unit again chartered Pelican to obtain footage of Peter and Margy’s work and of the elusive blue whales which visit the Portland area each year to feed on the krill in the rich waters of the Bonney Upwelling. (for more information on the work with the blue whales see website).
The ABC team this year included the award winning natural history cinematographer Rory McGuinnes, Leighton Debarros and ABC producers Jeni Clevers and Clare Thompson. Their task is one of the ‘Everest's’ of natural history cinematography, to obtain underwater footage of a blue whale feeding. These gentle giants are constantly on the move and tend to be rather camera shy. At this stage, to my knowledge, no one has yet achieved this objective.
Rory McGuiness, Peter Gill and the Pelican team developed a technique involving a sea kayak which was both effective and non invasive and obtained as many as eight shots of the blues. Unfortunately time and money ran out before we had achieved the goal of the feeding “close up”. One of the difficulties is that the feeding tends to take place in murky water. The whales are feeding on krill. The krill in turn are feeding on up welled nutrients that are responsible for the turbid conditions. Filming a 25 metre whale in visibility of less than 5 metres implies an intimate and frankly scary interaction with the whale. The slightest bump from a pectoral, dorsal or tail fin (from the whales point of view) could be devastating for Rory rather like being hit by an express train. Another difficulty is getting close to a creature who can effortlessly exceed 15 knots, dive to over three hundred meters and who is frankly not that interested in meeting some pip-squeak paparazzi, even though his intentions are beyond reproach.
Portland is situated on the edge of the southern ocean which is notorious for its extreme weather. Whale research and filming can only productively occur on a sunny day with less than 12 knots of wind. Any more than this and the whales are almost impossible to distinguish from the white capped waves, difficult to locate, and almost impossible to film productively. This reduces our work time to around one day in three at this time of the year. Despite these hurdles we have had some significant success. Watch out for “The Big Blue” due for broadcast on the ABC later this year.
I include here extracts from the daily logs of Peter Gill and Margy Morrice. I hope that these will provide insight to the work for those who may wish for more detail.
February 12 Pelican departs Portland and makes a hurried visit to Melbourne (Feb 13-15) to obtain parts and reprovision for the trip north. Leter Lustig, Billy Boyle and Sally Ryan join as delivery crew and Pelican heads north for Bundaberg and a rendezvous with scientists from GBRMPA, CSIRO and University of Queensland.
CONSULTANTS’ REPORT, FEBRUARY 2006
Margie Morrice and Pete Gill
We departed Portland Harbour at 0825hrs heading for Cape Nelson. The first blue whale was sighted around midday south-west of Cape Nelson, feeding on medium surface swarms of krill in slightly green water. As we followed it we realised there were 2 whales together, one small and one large. These whales then travelled south-east, but Pelican was unable to approach them as they headed east. The divers then used this opportunity to test their gear underwater, and Pelican headed again to the north-west into Discovery Bay. At 1548hrs approx. 30 common dolphins came in to bowride [38º21.00’S, 141º04.1’E], and at 1640hrs we stopped at sea anchor and the wind had increased to 25kt south-westerly.
The first blue whale was sighted 2nm ENE of our position at sea anchor south-east of Port McDonnell at 0957hrs. We dropped divers into the water approx. 70m away while the whale was feeding on medium to large krill swarms. With a strong (1kt) current, the divers found it hard to keep up with the whale and the low viz made approaches also difficult. It was decided to use the kayak and Rory made successful approaches, getting underwater footage of this whale as the whale was generally surface feeding in the same area, even making feeding lunges towards Pelican. No change in behaviour was observed for any of these approaches. A poo sample was collected at 1325hrs. Other observations during the filming of this whale included at 1053hrs a pod of approx. 15 common dolphins, and at 1250hrs a pod of 2 blue whales travelled towards this whale from the west coming within 200m before travelling off to the east.
After lunch we headed back to the general area where we saw the krill and whales. A blue whale was sighted at 1531hrs and at first was believed to be a ‘new’ whale from a preliminary look at its dorsal and pigment features. Later, a good photo-ID confirmed this whale to be the same as the whale followed earlier, so no further attempts were made to approach it. Subsurface krill was seen on the sounder at about 10m and the whale continued to surface feed. While heading to sea anchor another whale was sighted 200m away at 1722hrs but was not approached.
Most of the day was spent travelling south-east heading back to the head of the canyons off Cape Bridgewater. A blue whale was sighted first thing in the morning travelling slowly north-west and it was decided to not follow it due to thick cloud cover and the need to start heading back to Portland. At 1150hrs medium swarms of krill were seen at the surface and we crossed a colour front from green to blue water. At 1240hrs the sounder showed a good scattering layer between 20-30m with another thin layer just above the bottom. Blue whales were not sighted till late: at 1834hrs a whale travelling north just south-west of Cape Bridgewater, and at 1849hrs one travelling west, but these could not be approached. We stopped to deploy the sea anchor at 1857hrs.
We left sea anchor at 0744 hrs after drifting north-west overnight and headed back towards the canyons where we had sighted whales the previous night. A blue whale was sighted at 0830hrs, 200m to the south-east and travelling east, with krill seen on the sounder between 10-20m. This whale soon fed and we followed it until 0940hrs as it continued to travel slowly north-west diving between 2:30-4:00 minutes possibly feeding underwater. Some photographs were taken but Rory noticed a flesh-coloured mark on the whale’s RHS just behind the dorsal fin which was not captured on any photos. No more whales were sighted that day, but common dolphins came in to bowride on a number of occasions at 1034hrs and 1311hrs with approx. 10 seen in each group. With the thick cloud cover and increasing wind, Pelican headed back to port.
The second voyage started 0620hrs from Portland harbour and headed west to the canyons in Discovery Bay. As we passed Lawrence Rocks at 0720hrs we observed 20 common dolphins bowriding, and another 20 at 0815hrs. At 0930hrs we passed over a large reef at the edge of the first canyon with a krill layer on the sounder between 25-50m. At 1107hrs a blue whale was seen 500m inshore near an area where the plane had seen large surface krill swarms, the sounder here showing no krill after krill being at depth on the sounder all morning. Typical fish backscatter was seen but it’s likely that the sounder could not pick up surface krill scatter. At 1111hrs we were over a position where the whale dived after surface feeding and generally meandering in a WNW direction. At 1220hrs it was still surface feeding and Rory was still approaching the whale in the kayak, hoping that it would change course toward him. However this whale started to move away to the NW so we had lunch.
After lunch at 1410hrs we found a whale 1km to the SW amongst a number of small-medium surface swarms and we confirmed it to be the same whale sighted before lunch. At 1449hrs the kayak approached this whale twice and the whale travelled away even though there were many patches of krill approx. 70-100m apart. One underwater shot was successfully obtained. After collecting a sample of krill we headed for another whale inshore in Discovery Bay. ID photos were taken of both left and right sides of this new whale at 1513hrs, and a sample of poo taken. This whale was travelling to the SW back towards the first whale in medium swarms of krill. Another whale 300m to the WSW was travelling slowly SE, among small-medium swarms of krill. No successful photo-IDs were made on this whale but Pete noticed a barnacle hanging of the trailing edge of the dorsal fin, similar to a whale seen last week. At 1624hrs we headed back to the second whale which was observed feeding and collected sloughed skin in its footprint at 1641hrs. At 1655hrs 2 large bottlenose dolphins were sighted which then accompanied the third whale, and at 1730hrs we were back near what we thought was whale #3 and took photos of the RHS. We then headed to sea anchor SE of this position in order to end up tomorrow close to where we saw the first whale this morning.
Pelican headed SW once we left sea anchor at 0812hrs and headed ESE towards our position of yesterday morning. At 1010hrs we could see krill-like backscatter on the sounder at 30-40m, in 50m of water. The plane’s observers reported a number of positions where they saw surface krill swarms and surface fronts, and dolphin and bird activity. At 1247hrs a blue whale was seen 200m ahead and another two whales further offshore. At 1300hrs the 2 whales were 100m to the S, one of them much smaller than the other, with the larger whale being similar to one yesterday with a white patch on its dorsal. This whale lunge fed at 1302hrs. At 1306hrs Pelican moved upwind of the larger whale in order to launch the kayak at 1311hrs. The kayak was then retrieved at 1326hrs after being unsuccessful in approaching one of the three whales, but photo-IDs were collected for at least two of these whales. At 1347hrs the kayak was launched again towards the larger whale with a white-patch and this whale dived and headed offshore. All three whales seemed elusive. At one stage a whale that Rory was following slowly swam away and then swam back towards him and may have then swam under him before heading offshore. It appeared to be foraging but only a few surface swarms were seen. At 1456hrs another whale that was further inshore of the previous sightings was approached downwind under sail, however this whale then headed upwind so the motor was started. The kayak was again launched at 1600hrs and the whale dived for approx. 4min before surfacing with an explosive blow 50m further inshore, near the kayak. It then repeated this behaviour before moving away slowly. At 1620hrs the kayak was brought aboard and whales were generally observed to be foraging but not actively feeding, and were difficult to approach. At 1647hrs medium surface krill swarms were seen adjacent to two of the whales that were moving east but not feeding. We then left this area at 1658hrs and headed SE to a sea anchor position.
Today started at 0755hrs and at 0810hrs a very large group of bottlenose dolphins (estimated 1500) were seen generally travelling east but many hundreds came over to Pelican to bowride for over an hour before heading east again. We kept tracking inshore to a position between the previous few days’ whale sightings. At 0942hrs a small surface krill swarm was seen, with larger swarms at 0952hrs. The first blue whale was seen at 1213hrs travelling WSW, and appeared to be ‘Snip’, a whale also seen on 3 Feb and on the earlier voyage. The kayak was launched at 1132hrs but was retrieved again at 1250hrs after a number of unsuccessful approaches, as the whale headed SE and changed direction away from Pelican and the kayak. Another two blue whales were sighted heading slowly west at 1330hrs and lunge feeding in medium surface swarms of krill. We managed to get some of photos of the LHS of both whales while Rory made an unsuccessful approach in the kayak. One last whale was seen at 1535hrs, also travelling steadily west while we were en route to Portland, and we decided to keep moving east. Arrived at Portland at 1816hrs.
An overcast day with SSW winds at 10-15 kts, with a moderate SW swell and a lumpy sea. We left Portland at about 0630 and headed west around Cape Nelson. At 0834 a blue whale was sighted several hundred metres inshore but was not approached in poor light and lumpy sea. There was a scattering layer present on the sounder at ~40m – probably krill.
At 0917 we reached the position of our temperature logger, the top float of which was submerged, but which the ABC had agreed to attempt to retrieve using divers, however with the wind and swell conditions we decided not to try. At 1115 we talked to the aircraft observer who had sighted a blue whale surface feeding on krill to our east, and at 1120 we turned east again toward this sighting, as nothing was sighted in eastern Discovery Bay. At 1147 ~20 common dolphins bowrode for about 10 min. No further whales were sighted during the afternoon and we returned to Portland at 1610 after a frustrating day.
We left Portland at 0630 and headed west around Cape Nelson. At 0937 the aircraft reported surface krill swarms south and south-east of Cape Nelson. We continued to the west into eastern Discovery Bay, and at 1045 the aircraft reported a blue whale feeding on a large surface swarm 24nm to our WNW. This was too far to go, so after reaching the head of Whale Gully, at 1200 we decided to turn east again.
At 1400 ~10 common dolphins bowrode, and at 1405 we reached temperature logger site. As the swell had moderated since the previous day, Rory and Clare decided to dive to locate the logger. While we were on the recorded position, Garry sighted the floats on the sounder, indicating that the top float was 15m below us. Rory and Clare dived and were able to attach a top rope with float, which PG was able to use to successfully retrieve the logger a few days later (with some crucial upwelling data on it). At 1455 we had the divers back on board and headed east again.
At 1600 we sighted and approached a small blue whale to the south of Nelson Bay. Soon, a larger blue whale was also sighted in the area. We stayed in the area with these whales until 1730, during which Rory launched the single kayak twice, but was unable to get anywhere near the whales. However, the whales were definitely foraging in the area, and we witnessed at least five surface feeding lunges and three defecations. We returned to Portland at 1840.