On this special trip for the Marine Mammal Center, we headed west towards the Golden Gate Bridge.  We spotted a few harbor porpoises near Cavallo Spire and some harbor seals close to the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
As we headed out through the strait, we noticed lots of bird activity. There were a variety of types of birds present, including elegant terns, parasitic jaegers, brown pelicans, common murres, and Brandt’s cormorants.
Right around the demarcation line we spotted the first spout. It was a humpback whale.  One of the first behaviors we saw was a body roll, where we got a good look at the pectoral fin of the humpback.

The whale was surfacing every few minutes and arching its back to dive, but we weren’t seeing any flukes from the animal at first. The whale was definitely feeding.

Birds hovered all around the spots where it surfaced, attempting to get the leftover anchovies. The animal slowly moved west past the demarcation line.

As we followed, we spotted a second spout. We saw a shallow fluke dive from this animal which will hopefully help us identify the individual.

The wind was increasing and the tide was beginning to ebb, so we eventually started heading back in to the bay.

On our way back to Tiburon, we stopped by Pier 39 to look at the sea lions. We also took a look at some of the whale bones on Angel Island, where the Marine Mammal Center performs their necropsies.

-Allison

This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here