It was a stunning morning out on the water as we cruised into the sighting grounds to spot our West Australian Humpbacks. A big splash caught our attention on the horizon, as we got closer we saw two mother and calf pods coming closer towards each other for a Wednesday morning playtime. After a while a big trumpet came from one of the adults who surfaced and soon another, it turned out that we had two male escorts with each of the mother and calves.
They seemed to all be socialising amongst themselves nicely until another trumpet and heavy exhale came up from the depths, we had one more male in the mix causing a little chaos and excitement. After some chasing amongst the three males they soon became a bit more settled and as the calves played with big clumps of seaweed so did all the adults.
One of the calves in particular absolutely loved the seaweed as he rolled around for ages trying to scoop it up with his pectoral fins and lift it up all over his head with big spy hops. The males followed each other around trying to get closer to the females but the original escorts weren’t having it and the lone male ended up settling down eventually. Big bubble veils were being made by the escorts trying to cover their ladies as the lone male stayed very close trying his luck just in case they lost focus momentarily.
The young seaweed obsessed calf looked to have swum right through a bloom of baby barnacles at some point in his journey as he had them all over his face, a good thing these don’t really bother the whales at all. When the barnacles come to the end of their life span they will fall off leaving a white ring scare around this young Humpbacks face but not to worry as it doesn’t cause any harm. Our midday tours first observation shortly after departing was our cheeky Crested Tern “Teddy” who always takes a quick break on the top back deck’s roof alongside our onboard photographer, he was trying a new hairstyle today of the wind swept mohawk which suited him rather well!
It wasn’t long until we re-sighted our seaweed obsessed male calf from this mornings tour and unsurprisingly he was still playing with seaweed. White water ahead erupted as another mother and calf called out to the other pods close by hoping for an interaction. Two mother and calf pods came together and were socialising alongside a male escort who seemed to have won the jackpot as he was escorting two mother and calves without any competition from nearby bachelor males. One of the calves wanted to show his dominance with some chin slaps and breaching to tell all the other pods around him he was the boss which was very cute to see his dominant display. Seven mother and calf pods were all communicating around us towards each other with the little ones practicing the Language of the Whales. It was another fantastic day out on the water with our West Australian Humpbacks.
