Humpback pec slaps were observed on a beautiful Monday spent with our whales today as we ventured out to the sighting grounds.We first came across a resting mum and calf in the shallows taking it easy before their big migration back to Antarctica. We had a lot of mums and calves spread all around us and all doing similar behaviour before white water was spotted right in close to the coast. It looked to be a mum and calf breaching out of an area indicating possible predation with maybe a shark around. After this mum and calf went they set off a chain reaction with a few defensive surface behaviours by other mum and calves as well. They will tail lob and head lunge to try and clear out the area that they may of had a close call with a shark to protect their calves just in case the shark is feeling a little brave. This activity then made a lone adult humpback start up with tail lobbing and tail slapping but as we approached she started to pec slap and be more friendly with its choice of surface behaviour.
This lone humpback looked to be calling out and looking for a friend but didn’t quite get any answers back unfortunately, we are sure she will try again later. Our afternoon tour was a very sweet one with two mums and calves playing together, with one female calf and one male calf rolling around and being very gentle towards each other. The female calf had a beautiful white belly that was matching with mum and our male calf we have re- sighted from two days ago. It goes to show how important the resting grounds are off Perth for our visiting mums and calves to take it easy and prepare for their next leg of their migration down to Antarctica. After a little while one of the mums went up into a huge couple of tail lobs just to give herself a little more space as playtime was complete and both mums began to look for a good spot to settle in for an afternoon rest.
