There are many large females arriving in the resting grounds and now is the perfect opportunity for their calves to learn and play through gentle interactions with other mother and calf pods. Today we had three mums and three calves all getting to know each other and having a “whale” of a time. Calves practiced spy hoping, tail slapping, peduncle slapping and a lot of interesting behaviours that can only be called general calf silliness! Twisting and turning at the surface, almost trying to see who had the best moves amongst this large social pod. The mothers carefully watched over the calves playfulness to make sure no one was being a rude Humpback and the interaction was a very fun and gentle one.
A few other pods further away also responded to this surface activity from this larger pod by breaching and peduncle slapping in the distance. Even though much further away they can still easily be heard by the other whales in the area and this is all a part of The Language of the Whales™ and their daily communications. A Crested Tern decided to do a few laps around our vessel and even had a cheeky peek into the wheelhouse to see who was inside! Shortly after discovering there was defenetly no food hiding anywhere he continued on his busy day searching for his elusive lunch.
ID Log
Date – 1.11.16
Species – Humpback
Lat – Undisclosed Long – Undisclosed
Notes – Mother of calf who was tail slapping
