Big Blue

Big Blue

 Keep your eyes peeled as you stroll the pristine white beaches of Crystal Cove—summer is the time of year for an exciting marine wildlife sighting. During the warm summer months, blue whales are often travelling in Southern California’s coastal waters. Just a decade ago, seeing a blue whale from shore was perhaps as likely as a Big Foot sighting, but today’s circumstances—a mix of altered ocean currents and a surge of krill, their main food supply—have brought the massive marine mammals to our neck of the sea.

Two times the size of the more common gray whale, blue whales are said to be the largest animals that ever lived on Earth. Up to 100 feet long and weighing more than 200 tons, they can consume approximately four tons of krill each day. They typically swim alone or in pairs, and are among the loudest animals known to man. Among their most impressive attributes is perhaps the ability to spout more than 30 feet in the air—making it easy to spot them if you’re watching carefully.

Though at this time of year blue whales are the must-see wildlife, with the possibility of an El Niño coming later this year, there could be unusual animals—like jellyfish, bluefin tuna, tuna crabs and puffer fish—making appearances off the coast. We’ll keep you posted on what to look out for down at the cove in the coming months.

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