Perth weekend whale watching is always a good idea to get out on the water and enjoy some time with the incredible Humpback Whales of WA. We had a lot of energetic calves today with our first pod of two being a mum and calf, the little calf greeted us with multiple breaches as we spent some quality time with this pod. Once we spun around to head towards Fremantle a huge head lunge and full body breach from mum and calf further in towards the coast, we made our way closer to see what the fuss was about and by the looks of mum’s energy and surface activity it appeared there was predation in the area which indicated a shark may well have been lurking nearby.
Mum did her job clearing out any danger with huge breaches while her calf took advantage of the situation to have some fun and practice his breaching. They soon settled after a while and moved out of the area which was good to see mum and calf settle again after busy and active morning. A four meter Great White Shark was sighted not far from here just a few days ago and is most likely the cause of these mother whales defensive surface language. After a fantastic morning tour our midday tour did not disappoint, with a competition pod of four being very active. Four males pursued a very flirty female, she was testing the boys breath hold to start before dragging them on a wild chase. For two of the males it was too much and they decided to head off but for the main escort and challenger they wanted to continue competing to see who would win this females heart. It went calm for a bit until suddenly after a deep dive she launched in a huge breach!
It was followed by many more which was driving the males crazy, the main male started chin slapping around the female trying to keep the challenger out. If that wasn’t enough the female followed the breaching with the flirtiest pec slaps as the escort tried his best to keep the challenger away. As we departed it appeared she had chosen the escort who had been travelling with her as the energy levels began to subside… but not before one last breach! After two tours of full on action we were eager to see what our third tour would bring and my oh my was it exciting. Arriving in the sighting grounds to breaching we had non stop surface activity from two mums and calves and it was incredible. Our first mum and bub wanted to try and out do each other with breaching and we got to be the judges, it was a 10/10 from every one onboard. Our second mum and calf was very keen on socialising with this pod so they too breached and head lunged to get their attention, and it worked.
Our two calves then breached and socialised for a little while until the second mum had enough and started tail lobbing and tail slapping in the heart of the sunshine to clear her area. Leaving her to rest we returned back to our original mum and calf with their matching white pectorals fins who were continuing on with more breaching and mum spent the entire time pec slapping away. It was an incredible Perth weekend of whale watching and we felt very blessed to have witnessed so much incredible action and time spent with the magnificent Humpback Whales of Western Australia, they are simply the best!
