Spy Hops!

whalewatchoceansports1-1-14 - Diane Zander

Aloha,
We had a great day on the water on Thursday. With five different cruises just for Whale Watching, plus a couple of Snorkel Cruises thrown in, there’s way too much to report for one email, so I’ll just give you a few highlights. Though the surf was up today, the wind was very, very calm, allowing us to see for miles. There were lots of Humpbacks visible all day long — on our Wake up With the Whales Cruises (we took both Seasmoke and Manu Iwa out), we all saw a few breaches and lots of great fluke dives. On our Kid’s Educational Whale Watch Cruise, the kids (and parents and teachers from Wai’aha International Family School) got to see 3 spy hops about 100 yards from the boat. We also saw a pretty big peduncle throw. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise we had several close encounters with adult Humpbacks, and when we stopped the boat we could actually hear the whales singing through the hulls. After we were serenaded for several minutes, we decided to deploy the hydrophone and our close-by singer was certainly the star of the show. He was making some groaning, clicking, and squealing sounds that were new to us (along with the “whooop, whoop, whoooooop” sounds we were familiar with from last year. The best part was when the singing stopped briefly. We knew he was on the way up, and he surfaced just 50 yards from us!
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out a recap on Monday.
Claire
 

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Yesterday, I mentioned that researchers estimated a Humpback’s daily fish consumption during the summer season to be on the order of 2000 pounds per day. And if you do a quick Google search you’ll find that “fact” cited all over the place. Turns out that this may be just another example of how inaccurate information gets spread. Once a “fact” is listed in a book, it’s picked up on the internet and its spread can be exponential.

According to researcher Briana H. Witteveen and her colleagues who conducted a study to determine the effect of Humpback predation on fish abundance near Kodiak Alaska, based on the documented stomach contents of Humpbacks “processed” through whaling stations back in 1937, combined with estimates of actual suitable prey availability, an average size Humpback whale is eating more on the order of 800 pounds (or about 576,000 calories) of food each day.Does that seem like a lot of food to you?

 

Magical Cruise with Dolphins and Humpbacks

Aloha,

Wednesday morning’s Wake Up with the Whales on Manu Iwa was a magical cruise. Not only did we see our first whales before we had even left the mooring (spouting just outside of the bay), but as we left the bay, we encountered two other Humpbacks even closer to shore than our first whales. The whole cruise was like that..whale after whale after whale. There really wasn’t a time when we weren’t seeing a dorsal fin, tail, or spout for the entire two hours. When we deployed the hydrophone, we heard lots of singing too. And if that weren’t good enough, Captain Will spotted a pod of about 20 Bottlenose Dolphins (pretty rare for us to see). AND, the dolphins swam over to us, AND several of them spent a good half hour jumping over the whales. It really looked like something you’d see at Sea World when those dolphins were performing perfect arcuate leaps over the whales. We also saw some pec slapping, lots of fluke dives, and were approached within about 30 feet by a baby whale who just had to get a look at us. Mom was pretty relaxed about it, letting baby turn towards us and swim alongside the starboard hull before she came up underneath her calf, lifted him a little with her rostrum, and pushed him gently away from us. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we also saw lots of Humpbacks. They were all pretty quiet, surfacing just to spout and dive, but we did see a few pec slaps. The highlight of this cruise was a toss-up…we got to see Mom/Baby and a HUGE escort pretty close up. We were idling when baby decided to come check us out which was really exciting…but we also got a close-up visit by two big adult humpbacks.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Researchers report that Humpbacks in Alaska can consume a ton of food in a day. Their diet consists mainly of very small fish like herring, capelin, sand lance and krill. Based on the calorie count of herring, a Humpback in Alaska is consuming 1,500,000 calories each day!

Playful Calves

Aloha,

Tuesday morning was a great time to be on the water on the Kohala Coast! We took out two boats for our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay, and though we went different directions, guests on both cruises got to see a wide variety of surface behaviors from Humpbacks of all ages. On the Manu Iwa, we saw 25 different Humpbacks, including one Cow/Calf/Escort pod with a very active little calf. This guy did several tail lobs (which are really cute when you see a calf do them). We also got to see some whales that appeared to be as long as our boat (50′) — including one who surfaced about 25 yards from our idling boat, and then came up to get an even closer look. On Seasmoke, we also saw more than 20 different Humpbacks within 3/4 of a mile. We spent a considerable amount of time at idle, watching a Mom/Baby/Escort. We knew baby was pretty young because he still had a bent over dorsal fin. Mom looked to be pretty young herself (she was only about 35 feet long). Our second Mom/Baby/Escort pod came across us a little later in the cruise. Baby breached 5 times very close by (he kept trying to get closer), and we all got a great view of his ventral pleats (the “lines” we see on his belly). We also had several close encounters with solo whales who surfaced very close by at different times throughout the cruise.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: We’ve never witnessed a Humpback taking care of two calves. We know she could conceive twins (and whalers occasionally would find twin fetuses) but we doubt she could carry twins to term. And even if she could, we really doubt she could produce the 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves!

elisa thompson

Spinners and Humpbacks Swim Together

Aloha,

Monday morning brought us some windy conditions at Anaeho’omalu Bay, but guests joining us on Seasmoke’s Wake up With the Whales got to see some pretty fun surface activity. Throughout the two hours, we saw spouts from 10 different whales. The highlight of the cruise was a pod of three that just sort of surfaced out of nowhere erupting into a peduncle throw battle. These whales were on a 7 minute dive pattern and surfaced pretty close to where they dove each time, making us wonder what was going on underwater during all those 7 minute dives. We also saw a few nice fluke dives from a solo sub-adult . On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we spotted Mom and her calf just outside of the harbor. They were moving very slowly north, so we paralleled them until they dove. They surprised all of us when they popped up on the other side of the boat accompanied by an escort. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu we saw whales before we even left the bay. We were enjoying watching one whale at the surface when Captain Ryan spotted a huge pod of Spinner Dolphins behind us. As we turned to go take a look, a Humpback surfaced in the middle of the pod. The dolphins stayed with that whale in pretty much the same spot for over an hour and a half, jumping and spinning frequently. We watched the whale surface a lot too and kind of twist around before making a shallow dive. By the end of the cruise, our whale was joined by 4 other whales and the dolphins were STILL there…dolphins and whales together for 2 hours…incredible!

Mahalo,
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though Humpbacks come to Hawaii primarily to have babies and make babies, and though researchers have watched them closely here since the early 1970’s there are no documented observations of Humpbacks mating or calving!

Swell time Despite the Swell

Aloha,

Well the surf that came up on Thursday decided to stick around for most of the weekend, so we were forced to cancel a lot of our Whale Watch Cruises. But on the few cruises we did take out, it seemed that the whales were as happy to see us as we were to see them. For instance, on Saturday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on Seasmoke from Anaeho’omalu Bay, we got to see 7 breaches. But that wasn’t all. It seemed like no matter which way we looked, there was something going on at the surface — peduncle throws, tail lobs, pectoral slaps. Perhaps the best of all though, was when we found ourselves the object of interest for a Mom and her calf who decided to surface right next to us while we were all looking the other way. By Sunday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had some wind along with the swell, but we still got to see Mom and calf, and we also got to see a lone adult cruising along the surface.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A distinguishing morphological (body) characteristic of the Humpback is the length of her pectoral fins. Their average length is 1/3rd the length of the Humpback’s body (approx. 15 feet). The genus name for the Humpback (Megaptera) describes the fin – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”)

Does Big Surf Affect the Humpbacks?

Aloha,

As predicted, the surf was HUGE on the west side of the island on Thursday, causing us to cancel all of our charters. Since the closer to shore you get, the more you feel the water movement, it made me wonder how the Humpbacks handle high surf days. Do they move out to sea to avoid the surge?
Throughout my career as a whale naturalist, I’ve been on lots of cruises where the swell has been up. Though I’ve never been officially involved in a study tracking the movement of the whales, I have noticed anecdotally that we have to go further from shore to find the Humpbacks on big surf days. But those observations aren’t scientifically valid ones.
So, I spent some time looking through published research to see if anyone else has observed and documented this correlation.
A scan of the literature didn’t help me much with this question…but I did find recently published research that found that calves are more likely to play around on the surface when it’s rough than when it’s calm (they may get excited by all the wave action and want to see what it feels like)…and that male calves surface without mom more frequently than female calves, and stay on the surface longer. Since surface play may help to build muscles and increase myoglobin (which helps with oxygen storage so the whales can go longer between breaths), these young males might actually be preparing themselves for the different social life they’ll live when they grow up.
I also found other recently published research where the researchers found that Humpbacks switched from primarily vocal to primarily surface generated communication (breaching/peduncle throwing etc) in rougher oceans — they posited that the sound from a big splash travels across greater frequencies and therefore might be more easily detected by other Humpbacks in a noisy environment.
I’m still searching for research about whether Humpbacks are affected by the surf…if you find anything, please send it my way!
Have a great weekend. I’ll send out our Weekend Recap on Monday.
Mahalo,
Claire

Delicious, Nutritious Humpback Whale Milk

Aloha,

We started out our Wednesday with some excellent sightings on both Manu Iwa and Seasmoke for our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise. On Manu Iwa, we saw more than 20 Humpbacks within a mile from us, but many of them were much closer. We got to see a Mom and her baby unaccompanied by an escort. Baby breached a few times (probably burning off some of the energy he gains from drinking all that milk). We also saw a few HUGE (45 foot plus) whales — one of whom surfaced within 20 feet of us while we were idling with the hydrophone in the water. And speaking of the hydrophone — we heard a whole symphony when we deployed it today. While all this was going on, we also saw peduncle throws, and lots of pectoral slaps. Since Seasmoke departed at the same time from the same location, we decided to look for our “own” whales, and boy, did we find them! We watched a calf and his Mom for awhile, before another whale surfaced less than 100 feet from us. We actually didn’t know which way to look for a lot of the charter since there were whales everywhere! We saw lots of pec slaps, breaches, and peduncle throws, and also heard some pretty clear singing when we deployed our hydrophone.
On our 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, we found a Mom/Calf pod just north of the harbor. We watched them for awhile and got to see baby breach before we headed off to watch some of the other bigger whales we were seeing out a bit further. We came across a competitive pod of 5 whales who were doing their usual competitive aggressive behaviors — head lunging, peduncle throwing, and bubble blowing. At one point, they all passed within about 50 feet of our idling boat. On the way back to the harbor, we found our Mom and baby again. We stopped to watch baby breach 8 more times…but had to head back to the dock. As we left (which it was just killing us to do, but we had to get back), we watched baby continuing to breach over and over and over again.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Being mammals, Humpback Moms feed their calves milk. But Humpback milk isn’t just any old milk — it’s extremely rich with a fat content of approximately 50%! Human milk contains only about 4.5% fat. Supposedly, Humpback milk tastes like “sweetened cod liver oil” …but I don’t know that from experience!

Oh Baby!

Aloha,

On Tuesday’s Wake up With the Whales on Seasmoke, we got to see three different Mom/Calf/Escort pods. We also saw a lot of surface activity from other adult humpbacks in the area including 6 or 7 full breaches (one was just 50 yards from the boat — sure surprised all of us)! We also saw some peduncle throws and a few pec slaps from other whales. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise we also got to see some calves. We actually saw two different Mom/Calf/Escort pods. Baby was pretty active in that second pod — up on the surface a lot, and even breaching. In between watching those two pods, we got surrounded by a competitive pod. These whales were really acting aggressively towards each other. We saw lots of lunges, peduncle throws and tail lobs — even a few pec slaps.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that female Humpbacks with calves are accompanied by a male escort about 83% of the time during the winter season in Hawaii. Since nursing moms rarely get pregnant, we’re not sure why these males are hanging around…one theory is that the escort is trying to make a good impression on the female so that when she is receptive, she’ll consider the possibility of mating with him. Other researchers theorize that she puts up with the company of one male, hoping that he’ll scare off other amorous suitors (maybe dealing with one male at a time is better than having to deal with 2, 3, 4 or more).

Babies!

Aloha,

On Monday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu Bay, guests saw more than 20 different Humpbacks. A lot of the activity was between 1/2 of a mile to 1 mile away. We did find a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who chose to stay about 120 yards from us for quite awhile.. Baby was mostly hanging out on the surface, spouting and then diving down to mom. And as usual, both adults were surfacing much less frequently than the calf. Mom didn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of the escort — at least she didn’t do anything aggressive on the surface to indicate displeasure. Oh, and our onboard naturalist Jason reports that the boat was followed by a shark for awhile just outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay. Jason didn’t report the shark’s species though. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, upon leaving the bay, we spotted a small spout off the Hilton Waikoloa Village so headed that way. When we got there, we could see that baby was accompanied by Mom and an Escort but noticed a few other big whales around. These others must have spotted Mom too, because they began to give chase. Mom and baby both tail lobbed a few times and after diving, surfaced fairly close to us. The two newcomers to the pod must have gotten the message because they disappeared, and Mom, baby and the original escort headed off together.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales play host to all kinds of other animals. Besides the barnacles we often see on the Humpbacks’ flukes and other skin surfaces, the whales can also carry tape worms, lung worms, sinus flukes, and whale lice (which are related to skeleton shrimp) among others. Not all of these parasites actually harm the whale (which means that technically, they can’t really all be considered “parasites”). In fact, the barnacles might actually benefit the male Humpbacks who appear to use the sharp edges of the shells (perhaps inadvertently) as weapons during competitive battles.

Intense Sightings All Weekend

Aloha,

The whales were everywhere this weekend, and we ran a lot of different cruises, so I’ll just recap highlights from a few of them. On Friday’s10:00 Whale Watch, Captain Baker reports seeing a couple of pods of 3 whales harassing each other for the duration of the cruise which provided lots of surface action to watch. Guests also saw one whale do a complete breach just 120 yards from the boat. This guy was totally out of the water, and everyone got to see it (which is kind of unusual; it’s much more common that most of us are looking a different direction until we hear the shouts from the lucky people who see the whale’s rostrum exit the water)! And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise we saw lots of spouting and lots of fluking. We also got to see 2 lazy breaches from a whale about 200 yards away from us. He only got half his body out of the water, but he did land on his back both times.
On Saturday’s 10:00 cruise from Kawaihae, we started out with a single whale who breached 4 times in a row, and then did 7 peduncle throws — which certainly got our attention. But after that expenditure of energy, he just swam down the coast spouting and diving. Then we found a pod of Mom/Baby/Escort offshore of the Mauna Kea Resort. We watched the interaction between the 3 of them for the rest of our cruise.
On Sunday’s Wake up With the Whales, we hardly got a break from the action the whole trip. Not only did we see every surface activity in the book, but we had a whale breach not more than 100 feet from us, and at one point two whales surfaced just in front of our idling boat while one whale was tail lobbing right at our stern. On the 10:00 Cruise from Kawaihae, the whales were eerily quiet — until the last 30 minutes when a sub-adult started doing peduncle throw after peduncle throw. Some of us counted 15 — some of us counted 17. By our 3:00 departure for the Whale & Cocktails Cruise, it had gotten kind of windy,and the Humpbacks were reflecting that energy. We watched at least 6 pods of two whales, plus a few competitive pods — and according to Captain Mark, saw lots of tail lobs, peduncle throws, head lunges and breaches from these pods.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: A Humpback Whale doesn’t reach sexual maturity till it’s about 35 feet long (age 5 or 6 for females, and a little bit later for males). Researchers have observed that most Humpbacks in the North Pacific don’t begin calving successfully till they’re at least 10 years old – the mean average is 11.8 years. In the North Atlantic, Humpbacks generally give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7.Baby Breaches