Tromso whale watching: humpbacks, orca and a season that follows the fish

Norwegian spring-spawning herring is one of the largest fish stocks in the world. Every autumn a large part of it moves into deep, sheltered fjord water in northern Norway to overwinter, and it stays there in enormous concentrations until late winter.

Humpback whales and orca follow. Both feed on the same shoals and both use the same strategy in different ways: orca work as a family group, herding the fish into a tight ball near the surface, and humpbacks lunge through the ball with their mouths open. On a good day you watch both at once, with gulls and sea eagles working the surface above them.

The catch, and the thing that makes this niche unusual, is that the fish move. Over the past decades the wintering grounds have shifted: Vestfjorden in the 1990s, then Kvænangen, and in recent seasons the water around Skjervøy, two to three hours north of Tromsø. Operators follow, which is why a whale safari here is a long day rather than an afternoon, and why a six-hour trip and a twelve-hour trip can both be honest bookings in the same week.

It also explains the season. When the herring disperse in late January the whales leave, and no operator sails a whale safari in April. Anything advertised as one outside the winter is a fjord cruise with an optimistic title.

Humpback whale. Thirteen to fifteen metres, dark with long white flippers, and slow. The blow is a tall bushy column you can see from a kilometre away in still air. The tail — the fluke — comes up before a deep dive, and its underside is individually patterned, which is how researchers identify particular animals. Humpbacks lunge-feed: they come up through a herring ball with the mouth wide open, and it is the most spectacular thing that happens on these trips.

Orca. Six to eight metres, unmistakable black and white, and in family groups that can run to dozens. The dorsal fin of an adult male stands up to a metre and eighty centimetres clear of the water and is visible a very long way off. They move fast, they work the shoal cooperatively, and they are usually the animal people photograph most.

Also here. Fin whales — the second largest animal on earth — turn up some seasons. White-beaked dolphins are common. Sea eagles are overhead all winter, following the same fish.

What you will not see is a guarantee. Sighting rates in a good season are high enough that operators quote them, and blank days still happen when the herring move or the weather closes in.