Whale watchers off the coast of Laguna Beach, California received an unexpected gift when they spotted the first blue whale of the season.
The Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching boat captain spotted a 60-foot-long male blue whale about 6 miles from shore on April 28.
“We found our first blue whale of the season,” the organization wrote in a Facebook post.
Staff say this is an early sighting. Last year, the first blue whale was sighted on May 7.
Blue whales are the largest creatures on Earth, weighing up to 330,000 pounds and measuring up to 110 feet long, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s about the length of a 10-story building.
In fact, blue whales are the largest animals to have ever existed on our planet, according to BBC Earth. They are larger than any dinosaur or mammoth, according to experts.
Given their scale, they consume between 20 and 50 million calories per day, or about the equivalent of 80,000 Big Macs, according to NPR. However, instead of Big Macs, blue whales primarily eat huge quantities of krill.
And that’s exactly what the whale was doing when observers spotted it.
“We were watching this whale feed for several cycles when all of a sudden it started porpoiseing,” the organization explained.
Midway through the meal, the whale began to launch itself into the air.
For these whale enthusiasts, it was quite a morning.
“It was an incredible day on the water with you today!” I loved every minute of it,” said one commenter.
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