Australia’s South West Whale Tours in the winter time is perfect to meet the remarkable Humpback Whales currently northbound as thousands of whales move past Augusta. It was a beautiful morning as we met our first pod just outside the Blackwood river mouth as this male and female meandered slowly towards the reef line. Known as an escort pod, these male and female mates will journey together for some time before the male will eventually move out to find further females. Escort pods tend to keep to themselves and minimise attracting attention their way so the male doesn’t need to defend his position as primary escort from cheeky bachelor male challengers. Today we could observe multiple escort pods moving through the sighting grounds peacefully including one male with a damaged dorsal fin, most likely from a recent competition pod where the impact of males during the competition can crush and damage dorsal fins.
Thankfully he looked well and his injury was already showing it was healing as he moved calmly with his female through the bay. The energy lifted further ahead as multiple pods were on the move and as a bachelor male approached one pod they responded with inverted tail slapping. A beautiful fluke that was distinctive and we look forward to adding this individual into our fluke catalogue and see if we have met them previously. The pod moved away quickly which allowed the frustrated bachelor male to release some tension with tail lobs and breaches as he gained the interest of a nearby bachelor pod of two who approached for further investigation. Finding ourselves surrounded by three cheeky bachelor boys, the energy was high as loud trumpeting split through the still weather conditions. After much twisting, turning and chasing it appeared the three boys were getting on as they moved off together and we wished them well for the long migration ahead and thankfully our lone traveller had now found some friends.
