Written by:
Bryony Manley
The last few days have been a whale bonanza! Every field of view seems to contain another blow, another whale. There must be food aplenty and the humpbacks are gorging themselves if the rate of feeding calls heard on the hydrophones is anything to go by.
We have a photographer staying with us at Whale Point so we have been out on the water at every available opportunity looking for humpback feeding groups to photograph. A few days ago I was out on the boat and whilst we didn’t find any feeding groups we encountered three fin whales. We got pretty close to them with the boat to get some pictures and the immense size of them is incredible. They are the second largest animal on the planet, being beaten by the blue whale by only two or three meters. Although we didn’t see a feeding group that day, scanning the horizon looking for one we saw numerous blows of solitary humpbacks. There were certainly plenty of whales out there!
Yesterday it was my turn on the boat again and this time I was lucky. After hearing feeding calls on one of the hydrophones we quickly located a big group of humpback whales bubble net feeding. There were probably 12 whales in the group but the photographs will have to be checked to confirm the number. It was an incredible event to witness up close. The whales would all rise to the surface blowing hard and enveloping us in pungent whale breath. Let’s just say ‘eau de humpback’ wouldn’t sell well. After a minute or two one of them would take a dive and raise its tail flukes in the air, quickly followed by another fluke. And another fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. One after the other until they were all out of sight. Once all had disappeared from view they would begin their feeding calls. Long, trumpeting sounds with a haunting beauty to them. Slowly bubbles would begin to break the surface, forming a circle to trap the prey and suddenly the whales would erupt through the water, vast mouths agape, and engulf their quarry. Once their prey had been sieved from the water they would start to blow and the whole process would begin again.
After spending almost three hours watching the whales feed they promptly fell asleep, forming a resting line spread over a kilometer. I guess those guys had had their fill so we made our way slowly back to the lab, photographing three or four other whales we encountered on the short journey. Once in view of the lab there seemed to be whales everywhere. There must have been eight or nine whales dotted around Taylor Bight, including a mother and calf pair.
We watched the whales until it began to get dark, turning our heads to the sound of every blow like observers of some kind of bizarre tennis match. Unexpectedly bubbles began to break in a circle right below the deck in front of the lab. The water was clear enough to make out the white flashes of the pectoral fins as a single whale slowly broke the surface on its side, much more graceful than the frenzied event I had witnessed earlier. Through the water we watched it slowly close its mouth, roll, and slip from view. After seeing something so amazing and with the light fading we weren’t expecting more, but the whales delivered. Three whales breached six or seven times, followed by some pectoral fin slapping and head lobs. A calf over by the shore rounded everything off with a final tail slap.
Snuggled in my tent after dinner the blows of the whales could still be heard, loud exhalations carrying easily over a distance of a kilometer in calm conditions. Listening to the breaths I remembered the volume of the feeding group from earlier, twelve whales blowing together makes quite a racket. A breaching humpback would give a thunder clap a run for its money. As I write this I don’t have the wonders of the world wide web at my fingertips to correct me if I’m wrong but I have only ever heard the term ‘pod’ used to describe a group of whales. A parliament of owls. A murder of crows. Birds have pretty cool collective nouns but as far as I am aware whales don’t. I’m afraid this just doesn’t cut it with me.
So here’s one: a cacophony of humpbacks.
