Albany

Southern Right Whale

I was going to start this blog by saying, well long time no blog. But I just realised that is how I started my last one some 5 months ago! Oh dear. Well as the blog said we have a new house, which is awesome, but has taken up a lot of time. I never want to pick up a paint brush ever again. Ever. Time to photograph was certainly limited but is not so bad now.

The highlight over the last little while was certainly a trip to Albany, to go on a boat to see pelagic sea birds. What is pelagic? I knew it had something to do with the ocean, but I wasn’t sure what, so I looked it up. It means anywhere in the ocean that is not close to shore or to the bottom of the ocean, so just about anywhere in the ocean really.

Yellow-nosed Albatross

I was really really hoping to see a Wandering Albatross, and some whales. The Wandering Albatross was a no show, but the whales were spectacular. Before we had been moving an hour we saw 3 Southern Right Whales in King George Sound. The skipper turned off the engines and let the boat drift, and the whales would come up to the surface and blow might gusts of spray out their blowholes, and raise their fins like in the photo above. It was like nothing I have ever experienced. Because it was still early the light was great and there was fog still on the water, it is something I will never forget.

The birds however were disappointing with both low numbers of species and birds seen. I did manage to get a shot of a Yellow-nosed Albatross that I am really happy with (above). The highlight of the afternoon was a shark (possibly a Mako) that came up to the boat and attacked the burley. It harassed the birds on the water a little, but did not have a serious crack at them. My camera was ready in case it did, but alas it did not. I also managed to get out to the Stirling Range, which is one of my all time favourite places.

The Stirling Range

I promise it won’t be 5 months til the next blog!

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~ by wescooperphotography on August 31, 2010.