Tag Archives: whale calf

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.

Spy Hops, Breaches, and Lots of Singing

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Aloha,
Wednesday’s Whale Watches started out with a bang! On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw somewhere around 35 different whales. We saw 20 breaches (mostly out on the horizon – we can’t always see the animal but we can see the SPLASH). We also saw 3 spy hops, and lots of pec slaps and tail lobs. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we counted 20 different Humpbacks. We did see a competitive pod of 4 whales (our on-board naturalist Jonathan thinks they are the same individuals that we’ve been seeing for the last 3 days). We saw 2 breaches way on the horizon and a couple of head lunges closer in. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise on Manu Iwa, we saw about 20 whales, and enjoyed watching a mom with her little calf. The baby was pretty active, tail lobbing right next to Mom. We saw a bunch of breaches in the distance, but we couldn’t believe it when a whale breached 40 yards from the boat.  Seasmoke was also out on a Whales and Cocktails Cruise last night and guests aboard that boat saw about 15 different whales. Everyone was really excited when a mature Humpback surfaced right behind the boat and then swam along side. Guests also saw a lot of breaching about 400 yards away from the boat. When we deployed the hydrophone on this trip, the sounds we heard were loud and clear.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Spy hopping is one of the ways a Humpback can see what’s going on above the surface of the water. Because Humpbacks have really big heads proportionally, their eyes are about a third of the way down their bodies. When the whale spy hops, she rises slowly and vertically from the water, head first. If she’s a fully grown whale, her rostrum may be 15 feet above the surface before her eyes get there!

Humpbacks, False Killer Whales, and even a Hammerhead!

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Aloha,
Our weekend whale watching started out with “too many whales to count” on Friday’s Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. We spent about an hour with a pod of 3  – Mom, her calf and an escort. The calf was really active – lobbing his little tail over and over. We also had a couple of very close encounters with whales swimming just 10 feet away from the boat! On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 30 whales! We had breaches close to the boat; we saw a spy hop, head lunges, tail lobs, pec slaps and double pec slaps – pretty much every behavior in the book! On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise. the highlight of the trip was either the competitive pod of 6 whales repetitively tail lobbing and peduncle throwing…or the VERY CLOSE BREACH. We couldn’t decide which was more exciting. On Saturday’s Breakfast with the Whales, we encountered a pod of two whales just outside of the Bay. They stayed with us for awhile, but then we saw a pod of 5, so we headed out to see them. They were really active on the surface, breaching and tail lobbing, and at one point all 5 of them crossed our bow just 20 feet away. On our 10:00 Whale Watch, we saw 25 whales, including a fairly active competitive pod of 3. The two males were clearly jockeying for position to get closer to the female…lots of trumpeting and bubble blowing from them. We also saw two breaches on the horizon, tail lobs and peduncle throws. But the highlight of this trip is when our naturalist Jonathan saw something white floating on the water. As we got closer we were able to determine it was a Hammerhead Shark! This shark was probably 8-10 feet long, (which is normal for that species) and it stayed with the boat for almost 20 minutes! On Sunday’s 10:00 Whale Watch we saw 7 whales including two pods of Mom/Baby without escorts. When we deployed the hydrophone, we heard faint singing. And to top off the day, on our Whales and Cocktails trip, not only did we see a lots of Humpbacks, but we also saw a pod of false killer whales (they look like kind of like  big – really big – dolphins, and though they’re shaped a lot like orcas, they don’t have the white markings). False Killer Whales (Pseudorca crassidens) are not really that rare, although we don’t see them often in shallow water. They feed on large fish and squid, and average between 16-20 feet long.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: Friday’s pectoral and double pectoral slaps showed our guests the most distinctive physical characteristic of the Humpback Whale…Humpback Whales have the longest Pectoral Fins (arms) of any of the great whales. They’re so distinctive that the Latin Genus name (Megaptera) for the Humpback actually describes those fins…The Genus and Species names are “Megaptera Novaengliae” meaning“Big-Winged New Englander” and pronounced “MAY-ga-terra No-vee-ANG-li-ee.

Whale Watching Season is in Full Swing

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Aloha,
You know the whale season is in full swing when the naturalists see so many whales they forget to count! On our 8:00 Breakfast with the Whales, our naturalist Logan reports seeing “a whole bunch of whales”. Not a very accurate count…but when the action is this good, it’s hard to keep track! Guests also saw a Mom and her calf fairly close to the boat. They saw two breaches in the distance and lots of tail lobs. The same thing happened on our other whale watches, with the naturalists describing the trips as “so many whales we didn’t know where to look”! On our Whales & Cocktails Cruise, Adam, our on board naturalist, gave his best guesstimate as sighting 20 different whales throughout the course of the trip. He reports that the highlight of this trip was watching 2 whales breaching right next to each other. All that energy and splashing apparently attracted the attention of some other Humpbacks as we all got to watch 5 more whales join the breachers.
Mahalo and Have a Great Weekend. I’ll send the weekend recap out on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: Yesterday I promised to discuss a few theories about why a female Humpback with a calf would allow males to approach her since she doesn’t appear to be receptive to getting pregnant while she’s caring for a calf, and since DNA studies have proven that the escort isn’t the calf’s father. Researchers have observed Mom and Baby accompanied by a male escort about 83% of the time during the winter season in Hawaii, so she must have her reasons…one theory is that the escort is trying to make a good impression on the female so that when she finally 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 easier than having to deal with 2, 3, 4 or more! 

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!

Just How Well Does a Whale See?

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Aloha,
Our Monday started off really exciting with sightings of at least 20 different whales on our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise. We saw a lot of breaches in the distance but even better…we watched 5 breaches just 100 yards from the boat. We got to spend about a half hour with a Mom and her little calf…they seemed to be aware we were there (all the “oohing” and “aahing” from our guests probably tipped them off), but they didn’t seem at all bothered by our presence. On the 10:00 Whale Watch, guests saw 7 whales including one Mom with her baby. We saw 3 breaches too, and had two close encounters on the starboard side of the boat. The whales weren’t close enough for their spouts to coat our glasses, but they were close enough that we  see details on their bodies! We deployed the hydrophone on this trip and we heard singing from a whale we estimated to be about one mile away. On the Whales and Cocktails Cruise, we saw 18 different whales, but spent the majority of our time with a Mom and her very young calf. Meggan, our on-board naturalist estimated this little guy to be no more than a week and a half old. We watched as he attempted several tail lobs and peduncle throws. And we saw Mom breach 15 times! At one point, we got “mugged” as both of them came over to check us out, circling the boat and looking at us (we saw Mom lift her head out of the water to see us better). Oh…and we also saw some breaches out in the distance!
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: The Whales “mugging” us are definitely taking a look at us. Though Humpbacks rely on their sense of hearing far more than any other sense, we do know that vision is also important to them. Based  on the shape of the Humpbacks’ corneas, they can certainly see us…but, they’re probably a bit farsighted when looking through water, and a bit nearsighted when looking through the air. And in case anyone asks you, Humpbacks have beautiful brown eyes (with at least one notable exception…but I’ll tell you about that in a future email)!

Crazy Calf and Lots of Surface Activity

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Aloha,
We had two really run Whale Watches on Thursday. On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae, we saw a total of 8 whales — two of them were a mile or so away, but the other 6 put on quite a show. We watched a very active calf (think of any hyperactive 2 year old human kid you’ve ever met and you’ll get the idea). This baby pec slapped, double pec slapped and tail lobbed so many times that we had to stop counting at 20 for each activity and just enjoy his antics. And as if that weren’t enough, we also saw 3 full breaches just 25 yards from the boat from a couple of adults. An on our Whales and Cocktails Cruise, as we were making our way out of the bay in the beginning of the trip, we saw a full breach…then a bunch of tail lobs…then a bunch of peduncle throws about 500 yards from us. The whales kept this up…but they were moving at about the same speed we were, so we got to watch a lot more of this activity from about 500 yards away. We did have one close encounter on this trip, when a smaller whale surfaced just under 100 yards from us, blew, and dived again. In all, we saw 15 different whales on this trip.
Mahalo and have a wonderful weekend. I’ll send out a weekend recap report 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 aren’t telling, 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 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, aggression or irritation to near-by whales. Especially if the near-by whale happens to be so near that he gets landed upon!

Our First Calf of the Season!

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Aloha,
Our Monday Whale Watches brought us some nice surprises. On our Breakfast with the Whales Cruise, we saw 4 different Humpbacks. A smallish whale seemed very interested in us and swam under the boat and surfaced right along side of us. We also saw several tail lobs from a different whale, and Captain Will reports seeing some spy hops as well. On our 10:00 Whale Watch from Kawaihae we all were very surprised when we saw 2 Humpbacks at the end of the trip south of the harbor. The surf was HUGE, but the water conditions were glassy so we could see spouts and activity from quite a distance. But the biggest surprise happened on our Whales & Cocktails Cruise…we had headed north from Anaeho’omalu towards Mauna Lani Bay where we found a pod of two Humpbacks…Mom and her very young calf! This is the first time this season that we’ve seen a calf! We watched this pair for about 20 minutes but didn’t want to bother them, so we left them and headed south again. We saw two more big whales spout and dive before we had to head back to the Bay.

 

 
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Mahalo, and Happy New Year!
Claire
 
Captain Claire’s Humpback Whale Fact of the Day: We know Humpbacks are big animals, but it’s not until we have a CLOSE ENCOUNTER that we really appreciate how big they are. But Humpbacks are only the 5th largest of the great whales — Blue whales, Fin Whales, Grays, and Right Whales (including Bowheads) are all longer (on average)– and if you want to count the toothed whales in the list, Sperm Whales are longer too.