Juvenile Humpback closeup this morning as a cheeky youngster came over to check us out, another new calf was sighted and many escort pods on the move. A chilly morning greeted us as we moved out into the bay and our first pod was a busy escort pod who were on a mission. Travelling through Flinders Bay with purpose, they covered ground efficiently and soon found themselves closing in on the reef line. Wishing them well we moved out towards our second pod which was our wonderful local Bottlenose Dolphins who were enjoying some social time with a very young juvenile Humpback Whale. The youngster was curious and came straight over to us with much interest as the little one decided to hang out just off our stern for a while. It is always special to have these close encounters and get to know these individuals and their personalities. Although this Humpback was shy, the youngster was very curious and wanted to investigate us and we loved the opportunity to spend some time with this lovely whale and the Bottlenose Dolphins.
Further pods were moving through and these were mostly escort pods as males were travelling with their female and keeping a look out for bachelor males. Two escort pods appeared to notice each other and as they began to converge we noticed a third pod, but this one was a big surprise as a tiny calf surfaced with mum. The young calf was keeping up with mum well as she calmly moved her little one away from these converging escort pods. The four adults approached and there was a slight increase in energy as white water moved across the surface with a bit of jostling before the two seperate pods moved away from each other. To our surprise they did not move all that far away from each other, instead both pods established a distance between each other of about one hundred meters. The pods were both moving in towards the coastline and it appeared they were both in the mindset of looking for a nice place to settle in for an afternoon snooze. It was a great morning with the whales and fantastic to see so many different age groups moving through the bay and observing the importance these protective waters for all visiting Humpback Whales.
