Augusta winter whale watch in Flinders Bay as we switched into cruise control with a female travelling in migration mode and a protective male initiating powerful tail lobs to defend his girl. The Humpback Whale migration will extend from May to mid August northbound as we start to see a transition in the population moving through. Today we had a lone female who did appear to be pregnant migrating through the bay with incredible focus and intent. She was only young, so possibly this may be one of her first calves and the desire to make her way to warmer waters was calling strongly. She travelled alongside us before pushing towards a pocket of the bay and navigating towards the gap in the reef line that will send her on the way north. She did have a few very friendly Bottlenose Dolphins race by as they seemed to have found something to eat further away and charged past the bow excitedly, a quick hello and onwards to the buffet!
Albatross soared and Gannets hunted as the rain moved through and on the outskirts of the clearing mist powerful tail lobs could be sighted. Arriving in the area another powerful tail lob launched skywards as we could now see the reason why, this male was being challenged. A bachelor male had charged on into the area and was trying his luck of winning over the females interest. It appeared though that the powerful tail lobs had done their job as the three moved off together and the primary male escort was holding his position close to his girl. The challenger seemed hopeful and stuck close, but it appeared he didn’t have a good chance of winning this one. The afternoon settled into a peaceful bay as we could lookout and see the last of the birds feeding while the light lasted and our Humpback Whales focused on moving north quickly.
