Tag Archives: tail lob

Lots of Competition

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Aloha,
With the challenging weather conditions on Tuesday, we were only able to run one Whale Watch Cruise – but it was a good one! Guests on Tuesday’s Breakfast with the Whales were fortunate enough to watch a competitive pod of 6 whales. As usual, with a competitive pod, there was a lot of surface activity going on – pectoral slaps, peduncle throws, and even a couple of tail lobs. We also saw a couple of breaches, but they were from whales that were further away.
Mahalo,
Claire
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Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day:The Humpbacks we see off Hawaii’s coastlines travel quite a bit between the islands, but researchers have yet to observe a directional trend. In other words, some whales travel North to South, some South to North, and some travel back and forth…a lot like our human visitors.

Female Humpback Uses the Boat for Protection

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Aloha,
Guests on board Monday’s 10:00 Whale Watch from Anaeho’omalu Bay got to see a competitive pod of 6 whales about 3 miles offshore of Keawa’iki (south of the Bay). A very big female (with her calf) appeared to be using our boat to shield herself from those 4 male humpbacks (we didn’t mind – we were happy to be of service). The whole pod actually stayed with us for awhile – and we saw a lot of head lunges from the group. We also saw about 15 other whales spouting and fluke diving throughout the trip. Over the years we’ve noticed a pattern of Humpback arrivals that seems to be playing out this season as well,. Every year we notice an abrupt increase in population density at the end of the first week of January (we’re not sure if the Humpbacks are timing their arrival with the departure of all our holiday visitors….).
On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw 6 whales, but the one that stole the show was a very active sub-adult. This whale must have breached 10 times right in front of us. He also did multiple pectoral slaps and tail lobs, and surfaced more than once right next to the boat – and this activity went on for close to 40 minutes, making for a really exciting trip!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:  One of the questions we get asked most frequently on whale watches, is “Why are the whales doing that?” (and for “that”, you can substitute any whale behavior we see…breaches, head lunges, peduncle throws…etc). Since we really can’t ask the whales (well, we can ask, but they aren’t answering) we tend to interpret behavior based on what else is going on in the whales’ lives at that particular time. Humpbacks are in Hawaii to mate, calve, and take care of their babies. Aerial behaviors often result in big splashes which may be a great way for a whale to communicate size, status, location, excitement, aggression, irritation, or health to other whales (or to something/someone else he hears on the surface).

Reverse Sexual Size Dimorphism

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Aloha,
Our weekend of Whale Watching started out with a lot of surface activity. On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales, guests saw 4 different Humpbacks. Two were in the distance, but the two closest to us were excited about something – we got to see tail lobs, pectoral slaps and even a breach! On Friday’s Whales and Cocktails, we saw 7 different whales but spent most of our time with a competitive pod of 4 that chose to come pretty close to us. We saw multiple tail lobs and peduncle throws, and at one point, one of the whales surfaced just 50 feet from us. Saturday and Sunday brought us more of the same great action. Highlights included seeing breaches, tail lobs, and pec slaps all from what our onboard naturalist Gary reports as a yearling (based on her size) just out of Anaeho’omalu Bay on Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales. On Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch guests saw 5 different whales and lots of surface activity including multiple breaches, pec slaps and tail lobs.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback 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 (by about 5%). 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. Average length for a fully grown female Humpback is around 45 feet. At her heaviest, she weighs 35 – 40 tons.

Wild Times on the Water

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Aloha,
We had a wild show on Tuesday’s 10:00 Whale Watch. We found a competitive pod of 8 whales right off of Puako. We’re guessing it was composed of one female and 7 males…but we suppose it could have been just 8 competitive males. Regardless, we watched this group for our entire whale watch. We saw lots of trumpeting, lots of whales shoving other whales around, bubble blowing, chin lifts, peduncle throws and well…the ocean was churning from all their surface activity. It’s exhausting just trying to recount this…we can only imagine how exhausted the whales must be feeling! And on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, our onboard naturalist Angelica, reports that it was the best trip of her life! Leaving the bay, we saw what we thought was a competitive pod because we could see lots of splashing. As we approached, we realized it was a Cow/Calf/Escort pod. The adults were acting really aggressively towards each other…lots of chasing, lunging, and trumpeting, and it appeared to us that the poor little calf was just trying to stay out of the way. Apparently in the midst of all this chasing around, Mom saw our boat because she turned right towards us, leading the male to us too. All three of them spent the next hour swimming back and forth from side to side and bow to stern under the boat. At one point one of the adults did a tail lob so close to the stern that it splashed all of us! Baby seemed to like looking at the boat (very curious)…and as we watched this incredible show, the whole boat was rocking from the waves these whales were creating. The other interesting thing we noticed was as these whales spent more and more time using our boat for whatever purpose they were using it, they did seem to calm down a bit. We’re not sure if they were getting tired or just found us to be an interesting diversion.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The maternal instinct of the Humpback is so strong that she’ll even take care of other small animals in danger! In 2009, 2 scientists sailing off the coast of South America watched as a pod of Orcas flipped a Weddell Seal off an ice flow. The seal began swimming towards a nearby Humpback. Just as the seal got close, the whale rolled onto her back, sweeping the 400 pound seal onto her chest. As the Orcas closed in, the Humpback arched her back, which lifted the seal out of the water…unfortunately for the seal, the water rushing off the whale started to wash the seal back into the sea. The scientists were astounded to see the Humpback use her flipper to gently nudge the floundering seal back onto her chest…moments later, the seal slid back into the water and swam to the safety of a nearby ice flow.

Breach! Breach!

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Aloha,
On Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw a couple of different Mom/Baby/Escort pods. Lately, we’ve been noticing that our Mom whales have been allowing their curious calves to approach the boat for an investigation, and that’s exactly what happened today. We had two close encounters from two different calves…of course where the calf goes, Mom is close to follow, and each Mom let her calf hang out with us for a little while. We also found a competitive pod with 2 escorts, a Mom, and her calf. One of the escorts in this pod was acting pretty aggressively with lots of trumpeting. There were too many breaches, tail lobs, head lunges and peduncle throws from this pod to even keep track. We went back out again from
10:00 – 12:30, and from 12:30 – 2:30. During the course of these two trips we saw more than 35 Humpbacks. On the first trip, we saw one Mom/Baby pod who did come right up to the boat. We also saw quite a bit of tail lobbing and a few peduncle throws, and for the grand finale…a full breach very close by. On the second trip, the whales were a little quieter, but we did get to see another close-by breach.
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out the weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: According to researchers, the sleep process for a Humpback is most likely very similar to how their little toothed cousins, the dolphins, sleep. EEG readings from sleeping bottlenose dolphins show that the dolphins shut down half their brains at a time to rest. The active half presumably is monitoring breathing and perhaps scanning the surroundings for predators. Bottlenose dolphins sleep approximately 33% of the day, but stay asleep for only a couple of hours at a time.

What…No Song???

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Aloha,

We had a nice day of Whale Watching on Monday. We ran 3 different cruises but on the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we had 3 close encounters with curious Humpbacks, and saw lots of Mom/Baby/Escort pods, some breaches and tail lobs fairly close by, and lots of surface activities creating big splashes within a mile or so of us. On this cruise, we deployed the hydrophone and heard something weird…no song! The reason we think this is strange is that generally, this time of year, the male Humpbacks in Hawaii are in a highly competitive state battling for access to the remaining receptive females. Since recent research on the meaning of the song in the Humpback culture seems to support the idea that it singing is a way for the males to sort out social status and relationships, the fact that we didn’t hear it during this crucial part of mating season really is odd. Of course, it could have just been a coincidence that the one time we had the hydrophone in the water, the males in the vicinity were too busy charging around on the surface to sing. We’ll drop the hydrophone again today and see if this was just a fluke!

Mahalo, Claire

Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The smooth round flat spot we see on the water after a whale dives is called the “footprint”. Whalers thought it was caused by oil from the whale’s skin calming the surface of the water, but water samples have proven that theory to be false. When a whale dives (or kicks just below the surface) his flukes break the surface tension of the water and create a vertical wake, forming the footprint.

Young Calves and Lots of Escorts

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Aloha,

We started our weekend with some strange stormy weather on Friday. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we spent most of our time with a Mom/Baby/Escort pod. Baby led Mom right up to the boat a few times, and though the baby seemed pretty big and had a fairly straight dorsal fin (indicating he was not a new-born) both Mom and the Escort were fairly small (by Humpback standards), suggesting to us that they were both fairly young. We did see some head lunging about 800 yards from us too. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 15 different Humpbacks, and 4 different Mom/Baby pods.
On Saturday’s Breakfast With the Whales we saw every behavior we could hope for on a whale watch including multiple breaches from a very energetic calf, adult tail lobs and peduncle throws, pec slaps, and even some adult breaches!
And on Sunday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we found 3 different Mom/Baby/Escort pods, including one with a very, very small calf. Each of these pods decided to swing by the boat, so we had some great close encounters. We also saw a double breach from two adult whales (always exciting) and towards the end of the cruise we found a competitive pod who were doing a lot of trumpeting, head lunges and bubble blowing beneath the surface. At one point we were downwind from a spout and it really smelled kind of horrible. We finished the weekend of Whale Watching with a Whales and Cocktail Cruise from Anaeho’omalu Bay. We got to see several Mom/Calf pods, and they got to see us too (we had lots of close encounters). We also saw a lot of tail lobbing, breaching, and peduncle throws. And when we dropped our hydrophone into the water, we were surprised by the clarity of the songs we heard. Oh…and at the end of the day, the sun came out again, making for a beautiful end to the weekend.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale 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 this time of year seem to support the validity of these findings.

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