Some days you spot Blue Whales !

Sometimes surveys just work out as planned. Some days they don’t work at all – it’s too rainy, so the visibility makes it difficult to spot any whales, or the wind is too strong, so our drones can’t be used to take ID photos. Many things can make fieldwork tricky, but on some days, everything aligns, and you end up having an incredible experience.

We went out on a sunny, mild day to start our surveys at Point Ann, and almost immediately saw a blow just near the corner of the beach and a couple of breaching humpbacks in the far distance, promising a good day to come. 

Around 2 pm later that day, we launched our drone at Triggelow Beach to start our drone-based survey methodology. We were lucky enough to get an ID of a solitary female right southern whale, and during the whole survey, we were entertained by humpbacks breaching and playing around in the beautiful weather. 

At the end of our third drone flight, we spotted something very big, casting a lengthy, silvery shadow about 650 meters from shore. Quickly we got the drone back in, changed the batteries, and flew it out to investigate. An extremely exciting find: two beautiful blue whales smoothly making their way along the beach right in front of Gordon Inlet. 

It was two pygmy blue whales! We couldn’t believe our luck and, after a quick happy dance, collected data on them: One whale was 21.71m long! Even on the drone controller's screen, we could feel how large they were as they slowly started to head offshore.

Some days it’s rainy, windy and cold. On other days you get data for your research while being entertained by humpback acrobatics and spot two beautiful blue whales. 

Written by Michele Hannibaldsen (LWWP Volunteer) and edited by Max Fabry researcher, Little White Whale Project.

Note: Measurements undertaken by Grace Russel, who is based in Margaret River and is a Blue Whale researcher. You can follow Grace @the-fat-whales-project and @gracerussell