Erignathus barbatus

Photo by Captain Bud Christman, NOAA Corps, Bering Sea

The ocean off Point Barrow, Alaska during the spring Bowhead whale migration is a very noisy place. Contributors to the ambient environment include ice creaking and groaning, ringed seals, bearded seals, and beluga whales. The illustration below is a sound spectrogram of the eerie spiralling call of a bearded seal, Erignathus barbatus, recorded in April 1993. To hear the sound, click on the spectrogram.

The low one-second moans at approximately 7, 18, 30 and 39 seconds into the recording are the calls of Bowhead Whales.