This whale hanged around the house today. They are here to calve. This one had a calve with her.
Southern right whale
A pic of the barnicle nose!
She turned on her side a few times
Here you can just about see the young calve next to her...
Last pic - also calve to the left....
We see 1-5 every day now, hope to get an opportunity to get better pics - sometimes they jump (I think its males) and many times they lift their nose clear out...hope to be at the right time with a camera one day to snap that.
Oops - second last wrong pic - here is the intended pic!
Love them! I always love going a bit south to near Monterey (California) and renting a house on the ocean so I can watch the fish go by in the morning and then again around 6. Such an enjoyable past time. Though if I was in the water and I saw that fin in the 3rd pic come near me I would die of a heart attack! I can hear the Jaws music playing in my head. LOL
Yesterday, we were working in the front yard and the same thing happened - I told someone, If I was in the water now, I would be walking on it to the closest rocks! LOL! Camera does not do justice to the size of that!
Many years ago my brother had a close encounter with .... 'sharks'..in the waves...he only saw a big grey thing and came running out, white as a sheet' "SHARK, SHARK..SHAAAARK!!!", you just saw people coming head-over-heals out of the water, ladies forgetting some of their important stuff, men with swimming pants lower than normal, dragging kids.......,only to realize it was dolphins...oops!
This message was edited Aug 18, 2011 4:58 PM
Wonderful....!! We went to Nags Head NC last year and saw dolphin for the first time. I'm jumping up and down pointing and ekking. The locals probably thought "okay" LOL
A few fun facts - edited...
These marine mammals each weigh up to 80 tonnes and may reach 18 metres long. Although southern right whales are huge, bulky creatures, they are also agile and active animals, and their acrobatic antics can keep whale watchers amazed and entranced for hours. However, their commonest behaviour is lying around like logs at the surface.Southern right whales regularly engage in tail lobbing, flipper slapping and even head standing. After they breach, the sound of these mammoth acrobats hitting the water can be heard from a great distance. They are usually seen in mother and calf pairs, but occasionally hang out in groups of up to 20. During summer, right whales prefer the open ocean, away from the coast, but during early winter and spring the cows come in close to shore. There, near the surf line in sheltered bays, they give birth to their young, before returning to deeper waters as summer approaches. On average, they calve once every three years. Newborn animals are between four and a half to six metres long and weigh approximately one and a half tonnes.
Very nice!
Wish I had whales hanging around the house (well, maybe that'd be too much of a good thing, think of all the food they'd eat! ;-)
Resin
Hopefully it will not knock at the door and ask for a can-opener!
Wonderful, Rian. You're very fortunate having them hang around the house.
Hi Margaret...thanks, it is great. By the way, watch this space - I am off to Addo over the weekend for a bit of R&R and some elephants and whatever else we can find....been cleaning the old 4x4 the whole day, cannot wait.
The last visit in that area was in 2000, when I took this pic. Hopefully I will get more....
Have a wonderful time. I look forward to seeing what you saw.