Humpback Whale escort pod is a male and female who have joined together for a time during the annual migration and today we had many escort pods moving through Flinders Bay. Generally the behaviour of escort pods is relaxed as they try to maintain a low profile from other pods and minimise the risk of bumping into bachelor males. The reason for avoiding the bachelor pods is the male does not want to risk losing his female to the challengers. Humpback Whales do not mate for life, every breeding season is highly competitive. The females within the population are only looking to mate once every two to three years, while the males are looking to mate every year. Although the population is fairly even with fifty percent male and fifty percent females, every season we see many competition pods as the many males work hard to find suitable females.
Today the males we observed were very fortunate as they had found a female and were protectively guarding her from any challengers nearby. Multiple escort pods were on the move as they meandered through the bay and out towards the reef line. One male launched into a single powerful tail lob to warn another nearby pod not to keep approaching them and it appeared to work as they changed course and allowed the other pod to continue on with their day. It is an interesting time of the year as we see many more of the escort pods make their way past our south coast and continue northbound to join the many other Humpback Whales who have already travelled past Augusta over the last couple of months. Over forty-five thousand Humpback Whales make the annual migration and it is wonderful to meet so many each day and be part of these epic journey. Wishing the escort pods we met this afternoon well for their journey ahead we hoped the escort males would succeed in keeping their girls with the big migration still ahead and many challenger males lingering it will be a big effort for them.
