Breaching Southern Right calves is a spectacular sight and today we watched on as the adorable next generation practiced the Language of the Whales™ beautifully. Our first interaction was with our local Bottlenose Dolphins who were slinking through the crystal conditions and showing off their breakfast. A delicious brekky of Garfish was being shared amongst the pod and we observed them releasing and then chasing their meal, practicing their fine tuned hunting skills together. Shortly afterwards we enjoyed the company of a curious mother and her young calf with mum gently lifting her head out for a closer look at us, showing off those spectacular callosities. Our next mother and calf pods were relaxing in the perfect conditions and we watched as one of the young calves started to breach over and over again. Gaining the attention of his fellow nursery ground playmates by making a splash on the surface seemed a lot of fun as he continued his breaching and increased his coordination and skills.
The afternoon conditions were peaceful as one of the mother and calf pods began cruising through Flinders Bay and the young calf wiggled alongside mum as she swam along in her slipstream. The breaching Southern Right calves continued as we quietly sat with three mother and calf pods into the late afternoon sunshine and watched as the calves began to practice breaching. The first calf close to the shoreline began the conversation and it wasn’t long before the older calf in deeper water responded with some breaching of his own. The mother of this curious calf then began to gently approach our bow and present her calf to us, a beautiful moment when a female is so trusting. The young calf continued his curious approach and breached towards the bow, showing off to his admirers! We gently left mothers and calves to enjoy their peaceful afternoon, completely content to be accepted into their pod and privileged to witness the secret life of whales and the language lessons that unfold in the nursery grounds.
