Winter Whale Watching in Augusta – 10/6/22

Winter Whale Watching in Augusta is always an exciting time as we see the northern Humpback Whale migration flood our coastline with energy and spectacular sights. The whales were busy today as they journeyed through Flinders Bay and covered ground efficiently while the wintery conditions didn’t phase them one bit.

A great example of why these Humpback Whales are aiming for the warm waters of northern Western Australia to raise their calves and ensure the best weather possible for the newborns arrival, away from the cold waters of Antarctica.

Multiple pods were moving towards south east rocks and seemed at ease. The first pod we joined with were two enormous adults who had a regular rhythm and appeared to have been travelling together for a while. Actively avoiding the other pods in the area  this escort pod had a tricky situation as they approached the exit point of the bay. Scanning around us we could see well over a dozen Humpback Whales as they all began to converge and move around the rocks with our two adults bolting to try and avoid the other pods.

A distraction kept them safe as a young juvenile whale approached two older whales which kept them distracted from the escort pod.

The local Bottlenose Dolphins joined in for some social time as all three whales surfaced right alongside us with much interest and continued to swim with us for a while.

A steady rain front moved through the bay in our afternoon tour and we scanned carefully for the next surfacing. A muffled blow appeared first followed by a second blow no more than fifty meters away.

The first whale launched into an enormous peduncle slap before following up with some fantastic full body breaching.

Stay away this youngster was saying to the approaching whale and soon we could see the reason for this defensive behaviour as the rain cleared and the sun came out to play. A competition pod was starting to rumble as nine whales in total charged after each other and all the way towards the coastline.

The female kept the males moving and it was amazing to see their agility and speed as they navigated through the bay.

A fantastic day of winter whale watching in Augusta and wonderful to see the competitive and social side of what the northern Humpback Whale migration is all about.

-Whale Watch Western Australia

This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.