Whale watching in Augusta 2020 is set to be an exciting and unique season as today we were once again surrounded by dozens of Humpback Whales who were in the mood of competing. Large, boisterous male Humpbacks were alert and on the lookout for females and it didn’t take long for them to find a suitable lady to try and impress. The only trouble was that these beautiful female Humpbacks already had a handsome male travelling with them, these escort pods are a tricky problem for the bachelor males but this is what the northern migration is all about… competition time! Moving towards the escort pods with confidence, a powerful tail lob wasn’t going to stop the challengers who arrived and began to challenge the position of the primary escort.
Pushing, shoving, jostling and striking for position closest to the female, many changes of direction are common amongst these competition pods as they surged underneath our bow to use us as a distraction. Hundreds of Australasian Gannets were busily feeding today as they plummeted into the ocean to capture a delicious pilchard. The Bottlenose and Common Dolphins were both also busy chasing pilchards closer to the surface and everyone was having a good feed. Not that the Humpbacks took any notice of the feeding frenzy as they went about their competition and straight through the baitfish. Another beautiful day whale watching in Augusta 2020 and we look forward to seeing how the rest of this exciting season unfolds as we start to move through the winter days.
