I had a video camera with me this year while I was in Tonga. Nothing too fancy. A Sony HDR-XR500, with a Light and Motion housing and Fathoms 90-degree wide-angle port that David from Scubacam kindly let me abuse use.
I’m in the process of compiling a summary document for all the calfs that we encountered and ID-ed this season…a painstaking process that entails poring over thousands of images and hours of video footage.
Actually, while going through the footage of Mei Mei, I realised that I mis-identified one of our encounters. A couple of days after this video was taken, we had another encounter with a mom and calf. At the time, I ID-ed the calf as Mei Mei.
As it turns out…that encounter was with an entirely different mother and calf…which means I have one more calf to add to my list, bringing the total (for now) to 26 calfs (plus one more that Alexis and Nathalie ID-ed after I left Tonga).
A pleasant surprise, even though it means more work, as I need to amend photo tags, excel records, GPS files…aiyah.
If all goes well (i.e., I don’t go stark-raving mad from looking at so many whale photos), I’ll post my summary in the next few days.
Thanks for sharing that. There’s something completely different about watching a ‘home-made’ movie of something like that than watching a Discovery channel, fast-paced, from the are video. Very cool.
If I was the guy at 0:37 with the whale coming up right next to me I don’t think I’m pretty sure my suit would’ve gotten a bit warmer. Is it pretty rare for someone to get bumped by a whale?
Whales know what they’re doing. I won’t say it can’t happen, but the chances of being bumped are low if, like the person in the video, swimmers stay still and don’t swim frantically/ suddenly/ erratically at the whale.
Think of it this way…if an alien lands near you, steps out of its vehicle and stands there looking at you without any gestures that could appear threatening, you might be curious, and might even walk up to take a look.
If, on the other hand, it steps out of its vehicle and immediately charges at you with limbs flailing frantically while waving some metallic object…chances are you’d run if you could, defend yourself if you had to.
Simple as that.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for clarifying. It’s easy to write an animal that large off as an oaf who is too clumsy to avoid a little human, so forgive me for my ignorance. I’m sure just as it is inconvenient to bump shoulders eith someone on land, its just as inconevenient to a whale to bump into an odd floating animal who can’t seem to stay underwater,
Excellent video! Thanks for sharing! My husband and I have a trip to Tonga planned for next August. Can’t wait! Thanks again!
Thanks Rosanna, and have fun!
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