We celebrated the end of our first month of winter whale watching in Augusta with a cosy cover of rain and surrounded by whales, how fitting! Dozens of whales continue to migrate through Flinders Bay every few hours and we had a powerful competition pod this morning with two large males spy hopping, breaching and peduncle slapping. They were enormous and actively chasing a female through the bay with persistent tumbles and dashes at each other, even trying to use their rostrum to strike the solar plexus and softer underbelly. It is always fantastic to watch these highly energetic pods, but even more so when we have such large adults who have competed many times throughout their lifetime and bring much experience and knowledge creating an intense competition.
Our afternoon was filled with curiosity as three Humpback Whales came over to our vessel swimming right underneath our bow and around our stern. They had with them an exciting sighting, a large male Bottlenose Dolphin alliance pod. These pods are not frequently sighted in Flinders Bay and all 10+ males were enjoying a social interaction with the Humpbacks, but we wonder if they will meet up with the local pod of Bottlenose Dolphins we have here in the bay? Hopefully they will not cause much trouble should they be looking for any available females in the Flinders Bay pod.
Our afternoon was almost complete when our hearts skipped a beat once again… that was just another white fluke tail dive! Unbelievably, only a few days since our first sighting of the season we had just seen a glimpse of another completely white tail fluke. Waiting carefully we could see the turquoise glow of a white fluke even before the individual resurfaced, sure enough there it was, another magnificent white fluke! This beautiful individual was also travelling with another whale and as she raised her fluke everyones cameras went “click, click click” to try and capture a suitable identification image. A truly wonderful day to celebrate the fist month of winter whale watching in Augusta.
