A naturalist on Thursday captured an amusing series of images showing a sea lion that somehow ended up on the belly of a humpback whale.
Eric Austin Yee, who was with Blue Ocean Whale Watch in California’s Monterey Bay, said the whale was lunge-feeding on anchovies and when it surfaced he hoped simply to capture sharp images of the whale.
“I knew I caught the lunge, but I didn’t even know the sea lion was there,” Yee told For The Win Outdoors. “I didn’t realize I caught the sea lion until Kate told me to look through the photos.”
Kate Cummings, captain of Blue Ocean’s vessel, High Spirits, posted the photos to Facebook with the description:
“Today our naturalist Eric Austin Yee caught the hilarious moment when a humpback whale launched out of the water lunge-feeding for anchovies and took an unsuspecting California sea lion for a ride!
“We commonly see humpback whales and sea lions feeding together on anchovies – but the sea lions have to be alert and get out of the whales’ way! This whale was too quick!”
Cummings told For The Win Outdoors that she could clearly see the sea lion “tumbling down the length of the whale.”
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She added: “Apparently I was laughing so loud that the captain on the other boat could hear me. It was funny because you could tell the sea lion was fine, albeit completely surprised.”
When humpback whales are gorging on anchovies, the fish group tightly together in what are referred to as bait balls. When whales lunge through the bait balls, scattering the fish, sea lions and birds plunge in for their share.
In 2014, Cummings captured a spectacular image showing a pelican that had briefly become trapped in a lunge-feeding whale’s mouth (see photo below).
“We clearly saw the pelican get gobbled up, but then quickly released before the humpback submerged,” Cummings said after the incident. “The pelican looked perfectly fine – no evidence of wing damage or anything.”
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