Fish, fish, fish!

Yesterday's feeding frenzy was impressive.  I took a lot of pictures to document the event.  I sorted through more of them tonight, but I had trouble choosing which ones to show.  Here's a selection so you can get a feel for the scene.

The fish were in very dense concentrations close to shore, turning the water very dark.  With a polarized filter, the fish really stood out, looking dark gray against the paler blue water.  In all of the photos below, the darker areas are dense concentrations of small fish.

 

 

As you saw in last night's photos, the sea lions were very active in their pursuit of the schooling fish.   

 

 

 

The fish would separate when the sea lions dove through:

 

The agility and gracefulness of the sea lions was on full display:

 

This is one of my favorite pictures, with the sea lions, gulls, and cormorants all focused on the fish below:

 

Sometimes you could make out individual fish:

 

 

 

I searched my photos for closer views of the fish.  Here's one in a Harbor Seal's mouth:

 

And one that was caught by a California Gull:

 

Because I'm interested in feedback about the identification of these fish, here are two more of the fish in the breaking waves:

 

 

From a distance and based on their schooling behavior, we thought they might be anchovies.  However, Joe caught a few Night Smelt (Spirinchus starksi) near shore today, so now we're wondering about the identity of the fish in the large schools yesterday.  If you have thoughts about it, please let me know!