Tag Archives: Mom/Baby

A Hui Ho Humpbacks!

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Aloha,
On our last day of the 2013/2014 Whale Season, we were delighted to see our favorite pod — Mom and her calf — on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. Despite the wind, these two whales were curious about us and surfaced twice fairly close to us. The first time, they were about 100 yards away, and the second time, about 200 yards away. We got to see baby’s flukes, and Mom’s peduncle as they dived below. We wish them well on their journey back to Alaska and hope to see them again next season. A Hui Ho Humpbacks! It’s been great watching you and having you watch and play with us.
And I’d like to say Mahalo Nui Loa for reading these reports and sharing them with our guests. I appreciated all your comments this season, and look forward to sharing our 2014/2015 Humpback Whale Season with you!
Claire
Captain Claire’s End-of-the-Season Humpback Fact of the Day: Our North Pacific Humpback Whale population seems to be thriving. Before the whaling days in the early 19th century, researchers estimate the Humpback population to have been about 20,000 — they base this estimate on reports from whalers. In 1966, when humans finally stopped killing Humpbacks and began counting them, the population was estimated to be only around 1400. When I began working as a naturalist on whale watch tours a little more than 20 years ago, the population was estimated to be around 5000 (which was great news, because it meant the regulations put in place to protect the Humpbacks seemed to be working — the population had more than tripled). In 2008, when the SPLASH project released their initial population count results, these researchers estimated the North Pacific Humpback population to be around 20,000 — and they observed that the population was increasing by 5.5% to 6% every year!

Slow Motion Breaching

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Aloha,
Our weekend of Whale Watching started off well, with sightings of a Mom/Calf pod on our Friday 10:00 Whale Watch. This pod not only held our interest, but they also held the interest of a small pod of Spinner Dolphins, who were accompanying the whales. We also a double breach off in the distance. At the same time, we were running a Kid’s Field Trip Whale Watch Cruise on Manu Iwa. The kids got to see lots and lots of spouts and flukes as the Humpbacks were surfacing, breathing and diving. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise we got to watch a competitive pod of 6 Humpbacks charging across the surface of the ocean. We also saw a very close-by breach – and when the whale is as close as this one was, it looks like he’s going in slow motion!.
Mahalo, On Sunday, we saw Mom/Baby/Escort, and lots of spouts from single whales off in the distance.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According the website of the International Whaling Commission (the international agency overseeing whaling) the only countries with people allowed to hunt Humpbacks under the Aboriginal Sustenance Hunting program are a tribe in Greenland (who were allowed 9 West Greenland Humpbacks annually for the years 2010-2012, and 10 Humpbacks annually in 2013 and 2014), and the Bequian people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who were allowed a total of 20 Humpbacks between the years 2008 and 2012 and  a total of 24 Humpbacks between the years 2013 and 2018. The IWC specifically bans the killing of calves.

Humpback Calf Checks Us Out

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Aloha,
Highlights from Tuesday’s Whale Watch Cruises include sightings of two different Mom/Baby pods on our 10:00 Cruise. Neither of these pods were accompanied by an escort (or if one was around, he didn’t surface). The weather was calm enough that Captain Will could turn off the engines, so once we spotted the Mom/Baby pods, we were able to just drift. Apparently, our lack of movement was not threatening to the whales, because one of the calves came right over to us to inspect the boat. Mom was about 35 feet long (so she was a young mother), and her calf was really little with a very bent dorsal fin (indicating a recent birth). We also got to see a breach from a big adult about 800 yards from us, and as we cruised back to the harbor, we watched a couple of other adult Humpbacks cruising calmly along in our direction.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:The first whales to leave Hawaii each year are mature females (who are either newly pregnant, or taking a year off), followed by sub adult whales, and then, mature males. The last to leave are new mothers with their calves.

Moms and Babies

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Aloha,
Guests aboard our Wednesday Breakfast with the Whales Cruise spent considerable time with a pod of Mom and her baby. They both were pretty active on the surface, so we got to see lots of spouting, dorsal fins, flukes, and a lot of twisting and diving from the little calf. We know the calf nurses often (probably every hour), so we often wonder when he’s diving down, if that’s what’s going on. On the Snorkel Cruise, we got some to see some Humpback action too, as we paralleled a competitive pod for awhile. We’re always amazed at the turbulence a pod of whales can create as they charge across the surface, and this pod was definitely charging. And we finished the day with another Mom/Baby pod on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise. These whales were resting quietly on the surface, just spouting and swimming slowly. When we dropped the hydrophone we heard lots of loud, clear singers.
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. Humpbacks in the North Atlantic give birth for the first time between ages 5 and 7.

Spy Hopping Calf and Bubble Blowing Adults

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Aloha,
On Wednesday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we got to see a baby whale playing around on the surface, rolling over, showing us his pec fins and spy hopping with his little mouth open. We also saw a competitive pod doing multiple “head stands” and tail lobs. On our 12:30 Whale Watch, we were accompanied most of the trip by a Mom/Baby/Escort pod who all surfaced near us multiple times and even accompanied us back to the bay. Then the wind came up — so it was a bit bumpy on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, but that didn’t stop us from having a fantastic Whale Watch. We took our time getting out of the bay, and finally came across a pod of Humpbacks who apparently decided it might be interesting to dive below our boat and blow some bubbles. Even with the late afternoon glare on the water, it was still possible see to these whales as they floated and swam below the surface. But the highlight of the trip had to have been when these whales surfaced right next to us, “mugging” us. As usual when it’s windy, we also saw lots of splashes from surface active whales a bit further away. We even saw a few tail lobs and pectoral slaps.
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 species name for the Humpback (Megaptera) describes the fin – the translation from Latin for Megaptera is “Big – Winged”).

Breaching at Sunset

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Aloha,
On Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we saw flukes and  spouts everywhere we looked. We finished the trip with a great close encounter with a Humpback who decided to swing by our boat and check us out. The word of the evening though was “BREACH”! On our Moku Nui Sunset Sail we saw multiple breaches right in front of the boat. We also got to watch a Mom/Baby pod cruise along side us, and we saw a competitive pod charging across the surface. This pod was really bullying each other with lots of peduncle throws, head lunges, and shoving.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: How do Humpbacks keep their cool when swimming through our warm Hawaiian waters?  During prolonged exercise in warm water, excess heat is shed by increasing circulation to a network of capillaries (in Latin they’re called “retia mirabiliia” which translates to “miracle network”) near the surface of the Humpbacks’ flippers, flukes and dorsal fin — the excess heat is shed to the external environment. In fact, many researchers believe that whales lifting their pectoral fins into the air, or resting with their flukes exposed vertically are actually trying to cool off.

Female Humpbacks Communicate?

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Aloha,
On Wednesday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we got to watch about a dozen different Humpbacks. At first we were just watching a lot of spouting and fluke dives, but when Captain Will stopped the boat, a couple of very big whales surfaced right next to us – twice! Then, we were approached by a Mom with a very small calf (the calf’s dorsal fin hadn’t straightened up yet so we know he was young). After investigating us, they turned to swim away and the little guy did a half-breach. Our 10:00 Whale Watch began with a Mom and her baby coming over to see us. Right after that, we found a small competitive pod of 3 whales. These whales were really active on the surface, giving us a good view of tail lobs, head stands, and even a double spy-hop (making us wonder if the whales were looking at us or were more interested in how they looked to each other above the surface). We finally had to break away from all the action to head back to the harbor, but on the way back in we had whales surfacing 100 yards from us all around the boat. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, our onboard naturalist Mike reports seeing “plenty of whales”. He also reports hearing some great sounds from the hydrophone when it was deployed. But the most interesting part of the charter happened towards the end, when we were approached by two different Mom/Calf pods. The pods were about 20 feet apart, and both of them got very active – tail lobbing repetitively, causing us to question whether they were trying to communicate something urgent to each other or to us.
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 approximately 200 gallons of milk she’d need each day to feed two calves

Whales Everywhere on Tuesday Afternoon

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Aloha,
The rainy weather caused us to cancel our early morning Whale Watches on Tuesday, but as soon as we could go out again, what we saw more than made up for the first part of the day. In fact, on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw so many different spouts as we were leaving the bay that we weren’t sure which direction to head (one of our favorite dilemmas)! Captain Shane decided to take us south and we were rewarded quickly with a very curious calf and his permissive Mom. Much to our delight, she let him investigate the boat at close range. We then saw a competitive pod of 6 whales charging across the surface. There was lots of trumpeting from these hard-breathing whales. After that, we saw another pod of Mom/Baby, and this time an escort surfaced with them. For a grand finale, Mom breached twice, and the baby got into the excitement too, breaching multiple times.Our onboard naturalist Angelica estimates that throughout the duration of the cruise we saw 35 different whales!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Researchers have observed that Humpback calves are very playful, investigating all kinds of objects in their environment (including our boat), interacting with their moms, and even interacting with passing pods of dolphins. But for as many calves as we see in Hawaii during the winter, we never have observed the calves playing with each other. Though we’re not sure why this is, perhaps Mom won’t allow a calf that isn’t hers to approach because she doesn’t want to feed the wrong one.

Size Matters – At least it does for female Humpbacks!

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Aloha,
We ran 3 Whale Watches yesterday under the cloudy skies. On the boat, we find it relaxing not to be in direct sunlight all day, and the whales seemed to agree with us. We saw lots of spouting and fluke dives (giving us some great shots of the unique white patterns on the ventral side of the whales’ tails). And as expected for mid-February Whale Watches, we saw lots of pods of Mom/Baby and almost all of these pods were accompanied by at least one escort. The Mom/Baby pods accompanied by more than one escort were moving much more quickly as the escorts jockeyed for the position closest to Mom. Yesterday was one of those days where no matter which direction we looked we could see spouts and splashes from surface active whales.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:Recent research documents that mature-sized female humpbacks associate almost exclusively with mature sized males, and have a significant preference for the largest of these males. Mature sized males, however, were less discriminating and would associate with all females regardless of size (though the males that associated with immature females were generally the smaller males). Finally, immature-sized males associate with immature-sized females. This “assortative paring” has rarely been documented in mammals – so why would whales use size as a determining factor for mate choice? Since males aren’t involved in taking care of their calves, and since research demonstrates that a bigger calf is much more likely to survive, size is much more important to a female Humpback. The sex differences in size preference by mature whales probably reflect the relatively high costs of mature females mating with small or immature males compared to the lower costs of mature males mating with small or immature females. Body size appears to influence the adoption of alternative mating tactics by males such that smaller mature males avoid the costs of competing for the highest-quality females and instead focus their attentions on smaller females that may or may not be mature.
And if it would help to sum all that up in layman’s terms….for female Humpbacks, size matters.

Massive Humpback Tongues

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Aloha,
There was lots of great activity to see this past weekend. On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, guests were delighted to watch a Mom/Baby pair. Baby was busily breaching repetitively, while Mom stayed just below. We also saw some great tail lobs and pec slaps from a couple of nearby adults. On our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we got to see a VERY competitive pod chasing across the ocean. We saw lots of chin slaps and quick changes of direction and got quite the surprise when they all surfaced next to us, surrounding us. They spent almost 10 minutes using our boat, and all of us humans got quite the workout trying to follow them as they surfaced on opposite sides of the boat over and over again. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we loved watching a Humpback tail lob 30+ times right in front of the boat. On Saturday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise, Captain Baker reports watching 2 competitive pods, but the highlight of that cruise was the Mom/Baby/Escort pod that chose to stay with us for 45 minutes. On Sunday’s 10:00 Cruise, two whales spent considerable time right next to our boat. On our 12:30 Cruise we got to watch baby whale breach 36 times (we counted) right in front of the boat. Mom cruised right alongside her calf. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise we paralleled a very active competitive pod as they headed south. We saw lots of whale aggression – head lunges, chin slaps, and lots of shoving around.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Humpback Whales have massive tongues. An 80,000 pound Humpback has a two-ton tongue!  Taste buds appear to be atrophied…and they are unable to protrude their tongues from their mouths.