17 Aug 2015

Shearwaters and Whales

We arrived at Kolyuchin Inlet and spent 5-6 hours ashore in the rain. The breeding season is over but the loons haven’t yet departed – they were magnificent. We had some great views (and took many photographs) of the Yellow Billed Loons. Our reindeer herder friends were there (sadly without their reindeer) and we spent some time with them as we probably won’t see them for another year.  The next day began with a Zodiac cruise in near perfect weather conditions at Ratmanova Island. Again birds provided the highlight with stunning views of Tufted and Horned Puffins, Crested, Least and Parakeet Auklets, Pigeon, Common and Brunnich’s Guillemots.

We headed for Anadyr and as we travelled south through the Bering Strait the number of Short Tailed Shearwaters (annual visitors to these waters from Australia) increased significantly until there was a constant stream of them circling and generally milling around the ship. The number of birds kept increasing until there were well over a hundred thousand, indicating plentiful food in the area. Then we saw they weren’t the only ones feeding. In the middle of this black mass of birds were at least three Fin Whales and a group of Humpbacks. We slowed the ship and had a ring-side seat to the performance. The noise of birds landing, feeding and taking off again was indescribable and it was interspersed with the noise of the whales surfacing, blowing and feeding literally metres away from the ship. This experience in the Bering Strait rated amongst the best many seasoned wildlife observers have had and many of our group stopped photographing to simply absorb the breath-taking scene before us.

Fin Whale and a tiny fraction of the Short Tailed Shearwaters

This spine tingling encounter was a fitting way to farewell the group that has now disembarked, making way for our final bunch Wrangel bound expeditioners this season.