Today we met the most outgoing yearling Humpback who certainly surprised us with his confidence and persistence in wanting to interact with everyone he meets! Our first encounter was with a young mother and calf pod who seemed to have just met this young male. Mum was being wary of this exuberant yearling but did allow her calf to play and interact with all three often passing only a few meters away from us. Another larger mature female, her calf and male escort decided to come over and check things out which soon caught the attention of Mr. Yearling who then focused on trying to get close to the larger mother and calf much to the dismay of her protective male escort!
It almost seemed as if the male escort was a bit taken a back by how confident this young male yearling was as he pushed past the escort to “introduce” himself to the larger female. This soon resulted in a fair bit of twisting and turning as the escort tried to keep the very agile yearling away from mother and calf, not even a small tail slap from the escort seemed to deter the focus of this very determined yearling. A very entertaining interaction which had all four Humpbacks moving towards and around our vessel many times with constant changes of direction as this big game of whale chess played out. We certainly fell in love with the young male yearling and are very excited of his future as the next generation of West Australian Humpback dads… his determination could lead him to be one of the more successful males in our population in years to come.
ID Log
Date – 9.11.16
Species – Humpback
Lat – Undisclosed Long – Undisclosed
Notes – Large male escort and male yearling (back ground)
