An AMAZING trip with Arrowhead

Hey there everyone.....what a trip we had this afternoon! We started off Blacks Harbour with atleast 6 fin whales and we got some great looks so John decided to run us off towards South Wolf and see if we could find a humpback whale. When we got there we found Arrowhead, an adult male that was first sighted in 1976, as an adult....which makes him most likely atleast 40 years old. We spent about 30 minutes with him.....at first he wasn't raising his tail and then we got a nice fluke shot and John said we will stick around for one more surface......and then he breached fully out of the water!! And then 3 chin breaches.....and then he proceeding to tail lob to about 5 minutes and then another full breach....and then he slapped his pectoral flipper for about 20 minutes.....AMAZING!! I have a tonne of pictures I want to share with you....I hope you enjoy


Here you can see the ventral pleats on the belly side (allow expansion during feeding).


On of the best believed theories as to why humpbacks show this kind of surface behaviour during feeding season (and when they are not trying to stun their prey) is to knock external parasites off their bodies (also to attract mates during mating season...and maybe just for fun). Here you can actually see some blood on the pectoral flipper, most likely where the banacles were....first time I have ever seen evidence like this....so amazing and THANK YOU Jolinne for pointing it out! Oh....and Arrowhead was NOT hitting the water with his pec he was hitting himself!


Thanks so much for checking in today! Hope you enjoyed the photos,

Cheers,
Danielle