Weekend Whale Watching Perth was a lot of fun today with restful mums and calves in the morning playing in the rain while our midday tour it was time to practice the Language of the Whales. Starting our weekend with our wonderful whales just off Perth city, we sighted seven mum and calf pods in the area and watched them roll around and enjoy the calm weather. It’s always such a pleasure to spend time with these mums and calves, to see them relaxed and healthy is the most important thing for us as it’s such a big migration with many challenges for mum to make sure her baby makes it safely to the feeding grounds of Antarctica.
One of our mum and calf pods laid upside down with their big white belly turning the water turquoise as baby tried to get milk from mum, we believe she rolled over and said the milk bar is closed! These babies are very lucky to have their own 24/7 milk bar while mum doesn’t feed for the entire migration. Another highlight was a brief rain shower that moved through which had one of the mums lifting her rostrum to feel the sensation of the rain showcasing just how sensitive these gentle giants are and aware of their surroundings.
The afternoon tour soon approached to finish off our weekend whale watching this Saturday. Our first little surprise was a cheeky dominant calf tail lobbing to protect his mumma which was very cute even if he was trying to appear tuff. He was trying his hardest to communicate to the other mum and calf close by to give him some space, as he started to tail lob the other calf launched into a couple of huge breaches to show off his size.
The beautiful black bellied calf who was breaching was very special and full of character, certainly not backing down from the other pod with all his dominant tail lobs. He seemed to have egged mum on to do a big tail lob to sort everyone out, it worked! She then led her calf further away and it took a fair few more tail lobs from him until he finally settled down. Big white water then erupted close to the Perth city skyline in close to the shore so we headed in towards the city with a huge breach from mum.
As we approached we had a very energetic calf who repeatedly tail lobed to move all the other pods away from her mum. It was a busy little area with a convergence of five mum and calves all gathering together and the cause for all the surface language amongst the pods. It was wonderful to see and we are vey much looking forward to tomorrow to finish our weekend of whale watching with our beautiful Humpback Whales.
