Blue Whale Courtship, Mirissa, Sri Lanka

This image is not cropped and shown in exactly the way it was shot when I had my Canon 100-400mm zoom set at the 400mm end. This was an amazing day as between 9.48am and 11.01am we observed a pair of Blue Whales engaged in courtship. We were at N 05 44 50, E 080 25 767.

I am sure if I was not on board, it would have been just another pair of Blue Whales which had surfaced near the boat and much of the interesting behaviour which I wrote down would have been overlooked.

We had seen a pair at a distance and the boat was in idle when a Blue Whale emerged less than 50m of the boat. It took everyone by surprise. It was followed by another. The lead Blue performed a tail rolling display, rolling its tail to 45 degrees and then pulling it into the water at an angle. I had just fired a burst of close ups on its dorsal fin area for ID use. The camera was busy writing the images to the card when it did the first tail roll display at close range. This was the only image I got at such close range of this behaviour. Fortunately the whales (the same or both?) repeated this behaviour. The whales were very relaxed with the boat and subsequently surfaced once even closer. The other whale watching boats had left and the crew kept the boat out for me to record the behaviour as long as the patience of the other passengers held up. Many were seeing Blue Whales for the first time and did not realise how special a sighting they were having. Until Mirissa was publicised in May 2008 as Being Best for Blue Whale, this animal was one of the hardest animals to see.

It turned out to be a rewarding day trip from the capital Colombo using the Southern Expressway, which makes Blue Whale trips possible from the capital to be back in time for tea. Ashan Seneviratne (www.littleadventuressrilanka.com) assisted me with the logistics of this trip and Mirissa Water Sports as usual hosted me on their boat. This was my first trip on the Jayasayura II, their third boat.