Fremantle Boat Harbour Whale Tours are currently departing daily from Sardine Jetty with hundreds of Humpback Whales still making their way south towards Antarctica. Blue waters and a warm breeze was enjoyed on this lovely morning as we had a look for Humpback Whales. It didn’t take long until we found two mums and calves playing and socialising on the surface towards each other. Tail lobs from the calf and big pec slaps from mum started the conversation. Another pod a few hundred meters away started pec slapping as well to communicate the Language of the Whales, our first little calf was tail lobbing over and over towards the other calf who did a few tail lobs here and there as well. The two mums joined in with some pec slapping of their own as well as they socialised for a long time until they slowly separated to settle in for a rest. On our way home we spotted a very pretty looking white belly calf with the white from his belly coming right up the sides of his flanks, we will be keeping our eyes open for this unique calf on our second tour.
It was a complete change of pace onboard our midday tour with a competition pod appearing from from the deep blue as a female had the attention of two enormous males. The energy was incredibly intense as our female made it worse with a few flirty pec slaps to encourage the males to keep competing. It worked as the dominant behaviour increased as they trumpeted, charged and swiped their way towards and around each other. The challenger had a very unique trick where he would stretch his pec fin out and spin around to block the other male, he did this so many times and it was clear that it was his go to move. While the other male was focused on bubble veils and chin slaps to show his dominance we could see that the female had a tough choice to choose which male was suitable as both were very persistent and strong. After almost an hour she decided it was time to settle things down a bit as she lifted upwards in a few well balanced tail stands. During this time the original escort male looked to be the winner as he remained closest to his female and continued to guard her well. It was intense and an incredible sight to see so much intense energy at this time of year, it was a highlight of the season and we look forward to seeing what whales are around tomorrow.
