Baby Whales on the Move Can You Spot Them? Watch the calves in action as they migrate and practice being grownups! As you read these snippets from observers' reports, make a list of calf behaviors. Click photos to enlarge. Reports from Gray Whale Migration Observers We suspect a cow/calf pair when we see a single whale in close, just outside the kelp bed. If the whale is traveling slowly, making more frequent surfacings, and if we see anything extraneous — even an odd splash — we suspect a calf. Like children everywhere, the baby whales stay close to their mothers. A calf often rolls along the mom's back as she surfaces for air, or rests on its mom's back. The calf will sometimes do this if it feels threatened. The calf was very active. We saw it riding on mom's back a number times. It did a spy hop, rolled around with its head above water, it lunged, and we saw its pecs. The mom fluked a couple of times, they milled and swam in circles above whale rock and again near transect. We watched them for almost an hour. One calf seemed to be trying the limits of how far it could stray from mom before she tugged the leash. We saw the calf poke its head up and smile, showing perfectly yellow baleen. Moments later the calf was back in under mom's "wing." Ten minutes later, around Coal Oil Point, the calf breached twice. This mom is in for quite a road trip! Often what turns out to be a cow/calf pair looks like a single whale at first. From our vantage we look across the little one, usually tucked on mother's inside flank. There the calf is protected from offshore dangers. They swim in sync as one body. The calves usually have a weak blow, if any. So what we see is momma's big blow. Then, when they pass the Point, we can see a separation of the two bodies. NEXT: How do you know when you're face to face with a gray whale calf? Photos (top to bottom): Keith Jones, Mike Hawe, Keith Jones, Keith Jones, Mike Hawe. Mike Hawe. Back to Lesson   Facebook Pinterest Twitter © 1997 – 2019 Journey North. All rights reserved.