Happy Birthday Sally

Having missed a biopsy shot at a humpback whale yesterday, and suffering a sleepless night thinking about the miss, how, why and what can I do to improve my shooting, it was nice to get a second chance today !! Despite strong winds and a big swell (3-4m) we finally caught up with two adults and a calf off Ponto do Sol to the north of Sal Rei. We would never had found them if it wasn't for the calf breaching continuously over and over agan. It does seem the high seas brings out the aerial behaviour of humpback whales.

After mighty driving from Darren we finally got close enough for a biopsy attempt and got a skin sample from the escort which surfaced closer to the calf than the mother (as determined from a previous encounter with this mother-calf pair on 1 May).


Calf brreaching in the high seas off Ponto do Sol. Image by Pedrin

After this high sea chase we lost the whales but found two more adults at the southern end of Bais de sal Rei courtesy of a whalewatching boat. The whales also provided us with some huge breaches with belly slaps as well as the more usual back flips ! One of these whales was already sampled and was first photographed 20 years ago in 1992 off Norway during Project YONAH.  It was also recorded off Cape Verde last year (2011) but hads not been seen in the preceding 19 years - I guess it had been hiding away in Cape Verde all those years. we did not manage to get a sample of th esecond whale, which we think was the one I missed yesterday.  Ah well, there is always tommorrow !!

Adult whale demonstrating the art of a belly slap, ouch ! Image by Pedrin

This makes the total number of biopsies from Cape Verde this year to 21 from 19 new individuals. It takes my total from Cape Verde to 1; on my sisters birthday too (Happy Birthday Sally).

Simon Berrow