Very special tours today with an incredible interaction this afternoon as we watched a female Humpback and two males gently twist and turn on the surface showing us something very very special…. Humpback Courtship! Mating has never been recorded as this usually happens below the surface, but today you could clearly see the courtship behaviour as these love birds interacted together and were sighted belly to belly a few times.
The female would often turn her back towards the male as he surfaced next to her while other times you could see as one whale moved underneath and looked to push up the other whale on the surface, fascinating to watch as this very gentle display of affection was happening just off our bow which was incredible!
You could imagine our great surprise when one of the males breached so close to us (see video!) and they continued this courtship activity for over an hour and were still up at the surface and interacting when we left them. We also had wonderful interactions this morning with one pod of two Humpbacks approaching our vessel and checking everyone out on the bow before going to our stern which had everyone moving to our back duckboards to get water level with these beautiful whales.
Such a special day that even included Humpbacks under a rainbow and a tiny Bottlenose Dolphin calf and her mum who were both incredibly cute to say the least.
ID Log
Date – 27.6.16
Species – Humpback
Lat – 34 . 20. 39 Long – 115 . 11 . 56
Notes – This individual was the same who breached, male in courtship pod
