Can Humpback Whales have twins? A female Humpback will spend two years of her life growing, nurturing and raising one precious calf. Due to the extremes of the migration, a female whale can only put on enough weight to sustain herself and one calf so reports of twin Humpback Whale calves are not known and unlikely. Today we had twin tours as the sunshine, warm breeze and lovely conditions made for a perfect day for whale watching on both our morning and afternoon tours. Our first encounter of the day was with an enormous female Humpback and her lovely calf with both whales very relaxed. The young calf decided a big tail lob was necessary to establish his dominance band making sure that no one was going to get too close to his milk bar aka mum! A lovely pod and with the older female having completed this journey many times before, she took everything in her stride. The calf appeared to enjoy a good feed of milk before continuing on with their swim towards Rottnest Island and preparing for an afternoon siesta. A floating plastic bag was efficiently collected by Tom and it is always a good feeling to rid the area of an rubbish that is floating about, thankfully something we don’t need to do much of as WA waters are pristine.
The warm afternoon breeze escorted us back out to the sighting grounds as our afternoon tour enjoyed the sights of Fremantle and the small dinghies buzzing back towards the coastline after a day on the islands. Our first mother and calf were sighted as this big, white bellied female cruised by with her curios calf in tow. They seemed to be focused on moving towards Rottnest Island and organising themselves for the late afternoon and possibly into the evening in a comfortable resting place. The female launched into a couple of powerful and impressive tail lobs to clear the area and continued pushing towards a second pod sighted just up ahead. Two recreational vessels raced by at speeds much too fast and both mothers and their calves raced over to our vessel seeking a distraction until the noise of the other two boats disappeared. Mother and calf surfaced right on our bow, maybe a quick thank you for being a big enough obstacle for the recreational vessels to have to move around. The challenges we see our mother Humpbacks face on a daily basis is extraordinary and it is a good thing that females will only have one calf instead of twins to ensure success for both on such an epic migration, we appreciate and love every moment with them.
