When you take a whale-watching trip, you need to be lucky to observe a breaching session. To watch two such shows from two different humpbacks in a single afternoon is nothing less than a privilege.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, July 19, as I was carrying out some surveying and photo-identification for the Mingan Island Cetacean Study off the tip of the Gasp\u00e9 Peninsula, I followed the humpback whale H753 with its calf for about 3 nautical miles off of Gasp\u00e9 Bay. The entire time, the calf was swimming ahead of its mother and breaching repeatedly. It made more than twenty jumps before it calmed down.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, much deeper in the bay, I observe a huge explosion on the water surface. It was another humpback \u2013 the adult H840 \u2013 who was engaging in the same antics. The latter carried out the full range of various leaps and flips that a humpback is capable of. This individual is an accomplished acrobat! Breaching and landing on its back or side, poking out its head to take a peak across the water surface (spyhopping), slapping the water with its pectoral fin and then with its tail (caudal fin). A complete show that lasted about twenty minutes! I was not the only one to attend, as there was a whale-watching boat on site and a few individuals were probably able to witness this display from the Forillon coast.<\/p>\n
Here are a few photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you take a whale-watching trip, you need to be lucky to observe a breaching session. To watch two such shows from two different humpbacks in a single afternoon is nothing less than a privilege. On Wednesday, July 19, as I was carrying out some surveying and photo-identification for the Mingan Island Cetacean Study off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":40214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[401],"tags":[666,667,668,669,512],"class_list":["post-44137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-field-notes","tag-breach-en","tag-gaspe-en","tag-h753-en","tag-h840-en","tag-humpback-whale"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n