Daily, humpback whales in Skjálfandi Bay display different types of behaviors. In our recent posts, we explained why humpback whales during the night are actively feeding closer to the surface. In the last days, humpback whales are frequently seen resting or displaying acrobatic behaviour, like “Lobtailing”.
Throughout our whale watch season, many different humpback whale individuals come to feed in Skjálfandi Bay. Some might stay for just some hours, others for days and even weeks. Some might actually return year over year.
Krill are small crustaceans and are found in all the world's oceans. Krill look shrimp-like with a size of about 2 inch / 5cm. All together, there's 86 krill species worldwide. Alongside small schooling fish and plankton, krill are among our whales' main diet.
Do you remember our recent post about what makes this place such a great feeding ground for whales and why these magnificent animals actually migrate into cooler waters for their feeding season? In fact, this has not always been the case! Around 4.5 million years ago a sudden cooling and forming of ice caps in the northern hemisphere and thus a change of food supplies took place.
The humpback whale has a distinctive body shape, with long pectoral fins, also commonly named flippers. In fact, the scientific name “Megaptera novaeangliae”, of this species, means “big wing of the New England”, referring to this unique characteristic.
Nutrient rich waters are essential for the feeding grounds of our whales and the reason why the abundance of food for these gentle giants stays stable. But why is there such an amount of nutrients especially in cold waters? First of all, glacier melt delivers nutrients into the oceans.
If you visit a puffin colony on your journey around Iceland, you'll probably notice quite quickly how clean the nesting grounds are compared to those of other birds. Puffins are extremely clean birds and make sure to keep their homes tidy.
Skjálfandi Bay is a feeding area for several marine species, like humpback whales, Atlantic puffins and artic terns. Hundreds of birds are commonly observed closer to humpback whales and dolphins, while they are feeding.
Humpback whales migrate large distances between their high latitude feeding grounds and their mating or calving areas in tropical waters. Some humpback whales might travel up to 5000 miles between these two regions! At the moment, plenty of humpback whales appear in our beautiful Skjálfandi Bay for their feeding season.
Whales can't sleep the way we do, which is mostly for the fact that they are not having a reflex or urge to breathe, but instead they control every breath they take and decide whether or when it's time to do so.
