What An Awesome Day is a post from: Moreton Bay Whale Watching Reports

Mad Maggie is missing her dorsal fin, Marbles is a very unique whale with marbled patterns throughout his girth, Billy is all black on the underside and very acrobatic, Razor back is a whale that was injured by a ships propeller, and Stitches has markings all the way up the middle of his fluke that looks like he has been stitched up but they are natural markings.As the mothers and calves start arriving over the next two months it will be fun naming all the little babies and identifying their individual markings.

Captain Kerry Lopez

Mad Maggie and Marbles is a post from: Moreton Bay Whale Watching Reports

The Humpback whales have developed a very successful method of feeding , they blow bubbles to school large amounts of small crustaceans and fish, then in one massive scoop they extend their baleen plates out to capture their food. The ocean was aloud with clicking noises clearly heard as the whales approached these masses of fish, it was very apparent the mothers were teaching their calves the methods of feeding so they can place the much needed blubber to survive the long swim South.

CAPTAIN KERRY LOPEZ

Moreton Bay Alive With Mothers and Calves and Masses of Bait Fish is a post from: Moreton Bay Whale Watching Reports

Traditionally the humpbacks will give birth to their calves in the warm waters of the Whitsunday’s, around the end of August through to mid September, it is then that they will start their return journey back to the Antarctic, however what a delight it was to see two new born calves this week.

As we approached I thought it was a dolphin slapping its tail playing with the whales, then just as if to show her baby off the humpback mother swam directly to the boat and the little fellow put on a playful display.

A female will have a calf every second year, this calf can weigh between 1 – 3 tonnes , be 4-5 metres in length and will drink up to 600 litres of milk per day, it is one of the longest bonding relationships in the mammal world with the calves remaining with their mums for up to eighteen months before she will wean her baby off, the gestation period is eleven  months and they become sexually mature at the age of five.
If they are born on the East coast of Australia they will continue to migrate the east coast and likewise with the west coast.
Perhaps the warm sheltered waters of our bay are fast becoming the chosen breeding grounds for the Mums to birth.

The humbacks become sexually mature at the age of five and the gestation period is 11 months

Early Arrival for Baby Humpbacks is a post from: Moreton Bay Whale Watching Reports

This week we experienced the magical sound of the humpbacks singing, the males will sing to serenade the females….one large male will produce the call song and from there each and every other male will continue on with the same song,  however whilst the males sing to attract their potential mates the females make grunting loud social sounds.

Each and every year the song will change, it is passed on to the genetic memory of future whale generations.

If you are fortunate enough to have listened to the whales singing then you will understand how their music can filter into your senses and your soul, then and only then you are changed as a person.

Recordings of these songs are used to identify individual whales and possibly individual pods of whales as they navigate their particular oceans.  These melodious songs can be heard through the hull of a boat without the aid of the sophisticated underwater microphones.

Whilst diving in the pristine warm sheltered waters of the Moreton Bay Marine Park you will no doubt hear the whales sing.

CAPTAIN KERRY
BRISBANE WHALE WATCHING

Whale Update for July is a post from: Moreton Bay Whale Watching Reports