Tag Archives: competitive pod

April Whales Still Abundant

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Aloha,
The whales are still out there! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw whales in all directions…including pods of Mom/Baby/Escort and a couple of competitive pods. On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw a total of 5 breaches including one from a calf…two of these breaches were about 100 yards from the boat creating HUGE splashes. We also saw several head lunges and a couple of peduncle throws. Twice we had whales come up less than 100 yards from us. And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, the babies were out in full force. We saw lots of pods of Mom/Baby and almost all of these pods were accompanied by an escort (we suspect that in the pods where we didn’t see an escort, he was still around, but just hadn’t surfaced).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Since 1991, Whale Watchers off the coast of Australia have been seeing an all-white Humpback. They named him “Migaloo”, which is the aboriginal word for “white fella”, and DNA samples taken from skin he sloughed off into the water after a breach confirmed that he is, in fact, a male. He was believed to be the only all white Humpback in the world until September 2011, when an all white Humpback calf was spotted off of the Australian Coast. Whale watchers named him “Migaloo Jr”, and researchers are trying to determine if this little calf is related to Migaloo Senior. Up until very recently, researchers assumed that Migaloo was a true albino whale, but now he’s considered to be “hypo-pigmented” since they aren’t totally sure he produces absolutely no pigment (his eyes may have color). And yes…Migaloo does have problems with the sun. Whale Watchers in Australia have noted the poor guy does get quite the sunburn. And just this past November, another white Humpback was spotted off the coast of Norway.

Wild Wednesday

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Aloha,
We had a busy day on the water on Wednesday, and so did the whales. All day long we watched pods of Mom/Baby/Escort, and competitive pods. In fact, seeing a Humpback by him or her self was a rare sighting. Over the course of the day, we saw 12 breaches, 27 (we counted) tail lobs, 16 pec slaps, multiple peduncle throws and lots of “unidentifiable splashes”. We were mugged a few times by curious Mom/Baby pods, who always seemed to be accompanied by escorts. We did get to hear some trumpeting from “out-of-breath” participants in competitive pods. When we dropped our hydrophones, we still were hearing very loud and clear songs. This has been a very interesting season so far. The last count of the Humpbacks sponsored by the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary takes place this coming Saturday, March 30th…but anecdotally, it appears to us that there has been a higher population density of Humpbacks off the Kohala Coast this year than in previous years. After the count results are released, we’ll let you know if our unscientific observations are correct.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  In August 2008, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) changed the status of the Humpback Whale from “Vulnerable” to “Least Concern” reflecting the general upward trend of population levels. According to IUCN standards, animal populations in the “Least Concern” category are at a low risk for extinction. The IUCN classifies the status of Humans in the same category.

Mugged, Spy Hops and a Shark

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Aloha,
We ran a lot of whale watches on Thursday, so I’ll just summarize some of the highlights. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we were mugged by a Mom and her baby who were being pursued by two escorts. We saw a couple of great double pec slaps as mom was lying on her back waving those pec fins (we’re pretty sure she was trying to give those escorts the message that she wanted nothing to do with them). Baby seemed to be having a lot of fun rolling around on Mom’s head and down her pectoral fins. At one point, the two of them came right up to the stern of the boat, and just under the surface, Mom rolled over on to her back and cradled the baby in between her pectoral fin and the left side of her body. Just after that, baby did a spy hop which included a 360 degree spin. This baby was really young – he was a very light shade of grey and had a very bent dorsal fin.
On the next cruise, we saw the same Mom and baby, and this time both of them breached multiple times  – first mom, then baby, then mom, then baby again (and baby kept going for awhile). Of course we can’t be certain that she was teaching him or that he was mimicking her, but it sure was interesting to watch. On the 12:30 cruise, we were mugged again by a different Mom/Calf/Escort pod. These whales stayed with the boat for about 15 minutes. We also saw several tail lobs and some peduncle throws about 500 yards away. As we were heading north to get back to the bay at the end of this cruise, we were passed by a competitive pod of 7 (or possibly 8 – it was impossible to count) BIG whales charging south. They came right by the boat, mostly motor boating (a behavior that describes their posture as they swim fast on the surface), but we also saw a few chin lifts and a couple of piggy backs as they passed us. Even if we were heading the same direction as they were, we’d never have been able to keep up with this pod.
And on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had close encounters with 3 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, and saw several tail lobs and peduncle throws about 500 yards away. Just north of the Bay we did see an unusual thing…we saw a very big shark cruise by. Our naturalist Mike wasn’t able to identify the species, but he did say it was really big!
Mahalo, and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  Do you know the easiest way to distinguish whether that big creature swimming rapidly towards you is a whale or a shark? Watch the way it swims…whales propel themselves through the water by moving their tails up and down vertically. Sharks and other fish move their tails from side to side. Aristotle was the first person to document this difference around 350 B.C. Hopefully you’ll never need to use this information for anything other than winning a trivia contest!

Lots of Tri-Pods

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Aloha,
We can certainly tell by our weekend of whale watching that it’s the beginning of March! This is the part of the season for us when traditionally, we see the highest proportion of pods consisting of Mom/Baby/Escort, and also when we see lots of competitive pods. We ran a lot of whale watches these past few days, so I’ll just list some of the highlights.
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw more than two dozen different whales, but we focused our attention on three different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. We got to watch some pretty cute acrobatics from a couple of different babies who seemed to think that rolling around on Mom’s rostrum was a good way to spend the morning. We had 4 very close encounters on that trip with different pods…and to top it off, we got to watch a pod of Spinner Dolphins towards the end of our cruise, right outside of the Bay.
On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we started seeing whales before we even got on the boat! Two whales just outside of the bay were breaching and peduncle throwing multiple times while our guests boarded. And once aboard, we found 4 different competitive pods, and we saw breaching, tail lobs and peduncle throws from two of the pods. The other two pods seemed very intent on the chase. We also found two Mom/baby/escort pods.
And on Sunday, guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales started the cruise with a pod of Spinner Dolphins just outside of the bay. We also saw 4 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, a couple of fantastic breaches, and some very energetic tail lobbing and peduncle throws.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:Though measuring the length and weight of a Humpback’s internal organs is not really an exact science, it’s been estimated that the intestines of a fully grown Humpback whale are about 200 feet long (approximately 5 times the length of her body).

Singing a New Tune

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Aloha,
With the risk of sounding like a broken record, Thursday was another windy day. But guests aboard our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay did see whales. According to our onboard naturalist Mike, there were lots of “blows and goes” — whales just surfacing, spouting, and diving. We did see some breaching and splashing on the horizon though, and when we deployed the hydrophone, the sounds we heard were loud and clear. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, most of us (except for our on board naturalist, Angelica who was looking the wrong way) saw a whale breach RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BOW! After that, we saw whales everywhere we looked, including two cow/calf/escort pods.We also found a competitive pod and watched as one whale breached, landing on another in the pod…and then the same whale (we think) head lunged on top of another whale…lots of charging and trumpeting from this pod. At the end of the trip, just as we were returning to the bay, a Mom and her Baby decided to acquaint themselves with us, circling the boat and looking at all of us. And on the Whales and Cocktails cruise, guests saw lots of whales and lots of very close-by surface activities including head lunges, pectoral slaps, peduncle throws, breaches, and tail lobs. We found 3 Mom/Baby/Escort pods and a couple of different competitive pods. We were able to deploy the hydrophone on this trip and the sounds we heard were so loud that we actually had to turn the volume down by half so we didn’t blast everyone right off the boat.
Mahalo, and have a great weekend.
I’ll send out the next report on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:  To our untrained ears, the sounds we hear from our Hydrophones sound pretty random, though we have noticed the lack of certain phrases this year that we heard fairly often last year (most notably, a phrase that sounded like “whoop,Whoop, WHOOP, WHOOP WHOOP“).  And this year we’re hearing a very distinctive laughing-type sound (HEH – HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH).  According to a paper published in the journal Current Biology, it turns out that our ears aren’t so untrained after all. Researchers have documented that the Humpback songs in the South Pacific are actually changing really quickly. Over the last decade, completely new song themes are appearing within a season. The researchers compared the radical evolution of the Humpbacks’ songs to human musical composition, suggesting that the themes are so novel, it’s as if whole new human musical genres were appearing that no one had ever heard just a few years ago

Motorboating and Piggy Backing

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Aloha,
Tuesday’s Whale Watches brought us all kinds of activities. On the Breakfast with the Whales, as we left the bay we found a competitive pod of 5 whales. They were really battling it out, with lots of tail lobs, motorboating (this term describes exactly what it sounds like it describes…whales moving through the water with their heads angled up so they look like boats), and even some piggy backing. And right after we saw this pod of 5, another competitive pod of 4 popped up right near us. This pod was clearly out of breath as we heard lots of trumpeting from them. We also ran a special 10:00 Whale Watch for the kids from Laupahoehoe. On this cruise, we saw 16 different whales, but the highlight definitely was watching baby and mom take turns breaching (4 times), head lunging (twice) and pec slapping (3 times).  And on our Whales and Cocktails cruise, we saw 16 whales. We saw LOTS of pec slapping, 9 peduncle throws (from different whales) and several different competitive pods. The last pod we watched was a a pod of 4, and though we all wished we could see what was going on below the surface, based on what we could see from above, it must have been a big shoving match. From our vantage point we got to see lots of twisting fluke dives, and lots of whales on top of other whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers are not sure how Humpbacks find their way from Alaska to Hawaii each winter…after all, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Since small particles of a form of iron called “magnetite” have been found in Humpback’s brains, some researchers theorize that the magnetite acts like a magnet, helping the Humpbacks to feel the magnetic pull of the earth and keeping them on track. Other researchers disagree, claiming that the Humpbacks swim in such straight lines  when they migrate that they must be orienting themselves with a combination of methods, including some celestial markers like the position of the sun during the day, and the stars at night.

Competition Intensifies

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Aloha,
The Whale Watching is spectacular right now! Highlights from Monday include sightings of 20 different Humpbacks on our 10:00 Whale Watch, including 3 different Mom/Baby pods. One of these calves was really active, head lunging 4 times and tail lobbing 3 times.But the best part was watching him breach 5 different times. This little guy was really getting good at it – one of the times he actually got a half turn in mid-air! We also saw a competitive pod of 4 whales, and heard some nice clear songs through the hydrophone. The action continued on to the Whales and Cocktails Cruise where we saw 25 different Humpbacks including two competitive pods. The competition was fierce, and we got to witness pretty much every surface display you can see from a Humpback – tail lobs, peduncle throws, pec slaps, breaches, head lunges – you name it and we were there! We also found a Mom with her baby and watched baby breach (very cute when compared with our sightings of the big guys doing it in the throws of competition).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: All mammals have hair. Humpback Whales are mammals… so where is their hair? Humpbacks have rows of bumps on their chins that we call “tubercles”. Out of each one, sticks a hair that’s about 1/2 inch long that we call a “vibrissa”. Because there’s a nerve ending underneath each hair, and blood flow to the nerve, we know the whales use these hairs to sense something…but we’re not sure what they’re sensing. Quite likely, they use their hairs like cats use their whiskers– to feel some sort of proprioception

Competitive Pods and Close Encounters

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Aloha,
Our Wednesday Whale Watches started off a with a 8 whale sightings on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. We found a competitive pod of 5 sort of lazy whales. They did some half-hearted breaches, and we did hear some trumpeting (they were breathing hard). Of course, we have no idea how long they had been competing amongst each other, so they may not have been lazy – just tired. On our 10:00 am Whale Watch from Kawaihae we started the trip with a pod of two, Mom and her calf, right outside the harbor. After we watched them for awhile, we travelled down south to watch a pretty active competitive pod of 6 whales. We went out again at 12:30 and the highlight of this trip was the close encounter, with whales swimming right under our bow! Guests on board got some great photos!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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 is only about 4.5% fat .Supposedly, whale milk tastes like “sweetened cod liver oil” …but I don’t know that from experience!

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Aloha, We had some interesting activities to watch on Wednesday’s Whale Watches. On our 10:00 Whale Watch we saw 6 whales. We watched a few competitive pods fighting amongst themselves. If you’re a Humpback, you don’t have claws or teeth, so the only way to “win” a fight or express dominance is to shove the other guys around (think pro-wrestling). From our viewpoint, this competition is really exciting. Five or six 60,000 – 70,000 pound whales pushing each other and slapping at each other right next to the boat is really exciting! We went out again from 12:30 to 2:30 and got to see another competitive pod. This pod had 4 whales in it, and they also were really active at the surface. We saw 4 tail lobs from them, and a couple of times we saw a pectoral slap (the pectoral fin is what would be an arm on a human). The water was so clear that we could see the outlines of the whales as they swam under the surface close to the boat. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise we witnessed yet another fight. This time, we stayed with a competitive pod of 4 whales and watched them battle. We saw 25 tail lobs, lots of pectoral slaps, and lots of bubble blowing (again, an aggressive maneuver for the Humpbacks). According to Captain Will, who was on all of these cruises, this was the “best day so far this season for whale watching”…and it’s only going to get better!
Mahalo, Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day : Humpback Whales (and, in fact, all Baleen Whales) demonstrate something called “reverse sexual size dimorphism”. This means that an adult female Humpback is larger than an adult male. Though researchers are not sure of the exact reason for the difference in size, they theorize that the increased size allows the female to store more reserves to feed and care for her calf, and also to give birth to a bigger calf who might have a better chance of survival than a smaller one.