Consider the Southern Right Whale…

…of South Africa. The Southern right is one weird-looking mammal, more like an alien life form than anything I thought I recognize as being a whale.

Each Southern right whale can be individually identified by the horny growths known as callosities that grow on their heads. Their heads are  much hairier than most whales. And they have TWO blowholes. Who knew? The Internet is a vast place of useless information! *

This sign from an earlier day’s walk shows the Southern Right whale

They spend June – November off the coast of South Africa. When Uwe and I finally got to really travel again, the Garden Route of South Africa in November sounded perfect. Even though there are no gardens, just a lot of spectacular ocean views, and we’d hopefully see migrating whales. (The place-namers must have drunk too much local wine when they named that stretch of territory.)

The town to see whales is Hermanus. We walked from our hotel to the jetty where we’d catch a whale watching boat. The scenery included local art.

Not quite sure what the artist intended, but it’s a pretty cool sculpture

 

Cute, if anatomically questionable

 Out in the bay we spotted fins first.

The closer we got to the pod of 4 whales, the easier it was to spot the callosities.

These were whales?

Looked to me like futuristic submarines rising to the surface

And then one of the whales lifted its head. The Southern Right are baleen whales. They swim with their mouths open, continuously feeding as food filters through the baleen hairs.

You’re looking at a screen of baleen

We left the boat content but still not quite sure what life form we’d just spent a day observing. I had a hard time narrowing down Uwe’s photos of the Southern Right whale for this post! **

I’ll be talking about a close relative of the whale. It is NOT what you think! (heh heh heh) Any guesses?

Stay tuned for the next post.

NOTES: https://www.whaletrail.co.za *For more dubiously useful information, go to these earlier posts to learn what to call groups of whales: The Animal Kingdom: 22 & The Animal Kingdom: 37 **Uwe’s comment: I had a hard time?! He had to decide which to keep out of the more than 500 photos he took that day! ©2023 Jadi Campbell. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was  semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

8 thoughts on “Consider the Southern Right Whale…”

    1. Keera Ann the name comes from the fact that early whalers were told the whales were the ‘right’ southern whales to slaughter. In any case, it’s one truly strange-looking critter!

        1. A good example of how ecotourism can preserve or rescue the environment… Hermanus is ‘the’ spot in South Africa to journey to in order to see these whales and others. Which was the very reason we decided to visit there.

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