Tag Archives: pec slaps

Competition Heats Up

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Aloha,

Saturday’s morning Whale Watches were full of competiton. On our 8:00 Wake up with the Whales  Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay we paralleled a competitive pod of 5 or 6 humpbacks including Mom and her baby for an hour and 20 minutes. We saw them as we left the bay, and were able to stay with them till we got to Puako. These whales were so active we never were really sure exactly how many were in the pod. We saw lots of head lunges, peduncle throws and tail lobs from all the adult whales. Unfortunately, we had to turn back before we could see the resolution of the competition. On our 10:00 Signature Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we also got to watch a competitive pod including Mom and her baby. In this case, we were able to see the pod dissolve, as one of the males gave up, leaving Mom and baby with just a single escort. Before they broke up, we saw lots of shoving and pushing between the two males, and got to see a some lunging and head lifts too. And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had a repeat of the action we saw on Thursday’s Whales and Cocktails Cruise…LOTS of breaching from Mom, an Escort and baby. Baby seemed to be reacting to the adults around him, because he didn’t start breaching till after they finished, but once he started, he just didn’t want to stop!
On Sunday, we operated back to back to back cruises on Alala from Kawaihae Harbor. All day long we were seeing competitive pods, and pods of Mom/Baby usually accompanied by multiple escorts, but occasionally accompanied by just one escort. Highlights included head lunges and peduncle throws from competing males, lots of breaching (from the calves too), and both tail lobs and pec slaps. Whenever we dropped our hydrophone, we heard lots of singing over a range of distances (some loud, clear voices, and a lot of faint voices joining the choir too).
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Recently, researchers studying singing male Humpbacks were able to determine that immature males do join mature humpbacks in singing. These researchers theorize that every voice is important as a means to attract females to the “arena” where the males have congregated. Since we know that the females don’t respond to an individual male’s song – it’s not like a songbird’s song, designed to attract a female and repel other males – the researchers theorize that the humpbacks’ songs are meant to attract females to the” arena.” And though the immature males don’t get to mate, they may benefit too by indirectly learning the songs and the social rules of mating.

Whale Fight Enthralls

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Aloha,

We had a fun weekend despite some periods with less than calm seas. As usual, I won’t recap every cruise we ran since it would make this email too long…but there were Humpbacks everywhere we looked during Friday’s Wake Up with the Whales on Seasmoke. Captain Baker reports seeing 5 breaches, and LOTS of peduncle throws, tail lobs and pec slaps. On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we found ourselves surrounded by a competitive pod. The water was pretty rough, but we were enthralled by all the action. We got to see these whales bang into each other, hit each other with their flukes, peduncle throw right on top of each other, and even pec slap each other. We’re normally not violent people, but watching all of this was so exciting.
On Sunday’s 12;30 Cruise from Kawaihae,we saw Humpbacks in all directions, including a very active competitive pod, and a younger whale who breached and then head lunged 5 times in a row On our Whales & Cocktails Cruise, Mom and baby were waiting for us at the mouth of the bay. And later in the cruise, we were mugged for more than 20 minutes by two adult Humpbacks who hung out right underneath the stern!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Those lines we see under the Humpback’s mouth are actually pleats that allow for the expansion of her mouth when she feeds. This expansion, combined with her ability to flex her jaws, allows her to hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water in her mouth at one time — that’s the equivalent of 160,000 cans of Diet Pepsi (or Budweiser) in every gulp — of course, she doesn’t swallow the water she gulps…just the unlucky fish that had been swimming in it.

Best Whale Show This Year!

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Aloha,

January 1st brought us the best whale shows we’ve had all year (ha ha ha)! Seriously though, on our 8:00 Whale Watch, Captain Ryan reports that despite the bumpy ocean conditions guests saw a LOT of activity — everything from multiple pec slaps, to multiple peduncle throws, to close encounters. Breaches could be seen in the distance too. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we also had a close encounter. We got to see two Humpbacks just kind of milling about and saw some peduncle throws a couple of miles from us. And on the Whales & Cocktails Cruise, we saw 14 different whales. Most of them were a couple of miles away, but we did get to watch 3 Humpbacks close to shore chasing each other around, and we also saw 3 very clear (but kind of far away) breaches.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll check back in again on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Why would a whale waste the energy to throw the back half of his or her body out of the water in a peduncle throw (sometimes repetitively)?? Since the whales won’t tell us, all we can do is try to interpret their behavior in terms of what else is going on in their lives at that moment. We know that Humpbacks very rarely eat while they’re in Hawaii, and since a peduncle throw is a huge expenditure of energy — if you don’t believe me, try it yourself the next time you’re in the ocean — it’s got to be important to the whale. Throwing half of yourself out of the water results in a huge splash and might be a way to communicate location, health, excitement, or even aggression and irritation to nearby whales. Especially if the nearby whale happens to be so nearby that he gets landed upon!

Right Place…Right Time

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Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka!

​We had a great morning of whale watching on Wednesday. On our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise on  Manu Iwa, Captain Will reports being “in the right place at the right time”. Throughout the cruise, guests saw 10 or 12 whales, but the best action was right next to the boat. We saw 4 full breaches about 100 yards from us, pec slaps, tail lobs and even a few head lunges. These adult Humpbacks were very active…and we even had 2 of them surface 120 yards from us and parallel us as we cruised along.

On the 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we watched a very relaxed whale surface just 100 yards from us, spout, and then dive. We didn’t see his flukes, so we figured he’d be right back up. The surprise was on us though, because it wasn’t until 9 minutes later that he surfaced again — this time on the other side of the boat…spouted, and disappeared yet again without showing his flukes! We also saw some breaching further down the coast, and a couple of other spouts.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Though they look inflexible, a Humpback’s flukes (the wide part of his tail) contain no bones…just cartilage. When the whale is born, the sides of his flukes are curled inwards so he can slide more easily out of mom’s birth canal.

Christmas Humpback

Humpback Sexual Harrassment Avoidance Techniques

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Aloha,

We only ran one Whale Watch Cruise on Wednesday. but it was a good one. Guests on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise saw 5 different whales. We spent most of the beginning of the cruise with 3 surface-active whales. Two of them were tail-lobbing, peduncle throwing, and pec slapping right on top of each other. While we were watching, a third whale made a b-line right towards all the activity. We must have seen 9 peduncle throws and more than a dozen tail lobs (only two pec slaps though). The peduncle thrower was also the whale who was doing all those tail lobs (and they were backwards tail lobs too…s/he was hitting the dorsal side of his tail on the surface). The other whale was lying on his/her side and showed us two pectoral slaps before diving. About the time the third whale reached the others, they all spouted and took a long dive. And then…they disappeared from us. We stayed in the area for a long time before seeing two more whales further out on the horizon.

Mahalo,

Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Today I have to report on some very recently published research findings. Dr. Alison Craig and her associates observed that female Humpbacks in Hawaii with calves in tow swim 75% faster when they’re being chased by males in deep water than when they’re being chased in shallow water. As water depth decreased so did the number of males following the mother, making  females most likely to be found alone with their calves in the shallows. So why is this observation important?
 Dr. Craig suggests that it is unwanted male attention which causes the females and calves to  increase their swimming speed, in turn requiring the  mothers to supply their calves with more  milk to compensate for the extra energy they’ve used. Since the females aren’t feeding in Hawaii, the researchers theorize that these female Humpbacks are actually seeking shallow water not to avoid predators…but to avoid sexual harassment from male Humpbacks!

New Born Humpback Calf

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Aloha, Our weekend of Whale Watching started out with a bang! On Friday’s 10:00 Cruise, guests got to watch not 1…not 2… but 3 competitive pods of 5 whales each all at the same time! There was way more head lunging, peduncle throwing, pec slapping and breaching going on than we could keep track of…and we pretty much all lost our voices shouting out encouragement to all these whales in their battles for dominance. On the 12:30 Cruise, the waters quieted down. We watched several whales all in one small area just spouting…and then…all of a sudden, we saw the smallest calf we had ever seen. This little guy’s dorsal fin was completely bent over (indicating a VERY recent birth). Mom had the little whale resting on her rostrum and was gently pushing him around on the surface heading towards shore. As Captain Will put it, “Absolutely Incredible”! On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we were watching a couple of adult whales but were all surprised when a calf popped up right off the bow of the boat. We could see mom under the water, but she never did surface near us. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 15 different whales including 3 Mom/Baby pods. One of the little calves was very energetic, breaching 3 times, pec slapping and tail lobbing. When we deployed the hydrophone, we did hear multiple voices, but none of the singers were very close. And on the 10:00 Cruise we watched Mom and Baby breaching (was she teaching him how or were they both communicating something important?). We also got to watch a small competitive pod doing pec slaps and tail lobs. By Sunday, the weather moved in so we only got to run the morning cruises – but at 10:00 am we were the object of curiosity for Mom and her Baby Humpback. They surfaced and dove next to us for 45 minutes…we even got spouted upon. We also saw some breaches in the distance, but we did get lucky when a different whale breached just a couple hundred yards from us. Mahalo, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to research conducted in Japan, the peak estrus period for Humpbacks (i.e. when females are in heat) overall, is between the end of January and the end of February, but the peak estrus period for females with a calf appears to be several weeks later. Our frequent observations of pods of Mom and Baby who are accompanied by an escort at this time of year seem to support the validity of these findings. Although, since many mature females without calves have left Hawaii already, perhaps it’s not the fact that the females with calves are in estrus that’s attracting the escorts, but just that these males are accompanying any female they can find.

Object of Attention

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Aloha,
Our week got off to a great start! On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, Captain Paul reports a very active competitive pod. There were 5 whales involved (at least while we were watching) and they were quite energetic. We all got to see countless pec slaps, tail lobs and peduncle throws, and these whales seemed to be most curious about our boat while it was making noise. When we turned the engines off to drift, the whales took the competition away from us, but as soon as we powered up, they turned back towards us. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise we found a pod of 7 medium size to really large whales. These whales were really interested in the boat and spent a long time right next to us. We saw several spy hops, lots of pec slaps, and got great views of each of them as they swam underneath the boat from port to starboard and back again. Normally when we see a pod of that many animals, we see lots of competition, and lots of aggression…but this pod just seemed to want to look at our boat.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:  Starting out as a way to pass time between whale sightings and hunts on the whaling ships in the mid18th century, “scrimshawing” (or the art of carving intricate designs on to whale teeth, bones and baleen) survived until the ban on commercial whaling went into effect. The etched designs were originally produced by sailors using sailing needles, and were colored with candle soot and tobacco juice to bring the designs into view. Today, hobbyists still create scrimshaw — but they use bones and tusks from non-endangered and non-protected animal species like camels, buffalo and even warthogs

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!