Identification of individual humpback whales has primarily been accomplished by above-water photographs of tail flukes, along with dorsal fins.  Humpback calves present more of an ID challenge though, as the young ones have distinguishing marks that are sometimes only visible from underwater observations.

Tony Wu has been photographing humpback whales around Vava’u, Tonga, for years now and he has put together an impressive summary of calf IDs over a number of weeks during this past August and September 2009.  In fact part of my time spent in Vava’u, was spend photographing along with Tony.

Still, some days I went out on other boats and Tony is revising his Calf 2009 Summary to include other calf sightings which include photographs that can be used for ID.

Since this calf was one of the stars of my last post about *happy* whales; he/she is the main calf I want to get IDed.  This calf doesn’t seem to be in any of Tony’s sightings or subsequent photographs of others, at least to this point.

Here is a link to Tony Wu’s PDF of 2009 calf IDs so far and mine will most likely be added soon.  Tony explains his methodology and includes unique ID points for each humpback mother/calf pair.

In the photograph above I discovered a unique characteristic; besides the various visual patterns on the mother.  Unfortunately, cookie cutter shark bites are not uncommon on humpback whales. 

Here is a link that shows what cookie cutter sharks do to marine life (it’s pretty creepy)!

Photographs of cookie cutter sharks and bites

But, a cookie cutter shark bite clear through a humpback’s pectoral fin is not as common (note: you can see blue water clear through).  So this distinctive “hole” right at her left pectoral fin tip can be one of several distinguishing ID marks to help catalog her calf.  These marks are used in addition to more traditional photographs of the underside of the tail fluke and pectoral fins, but these photographs aren’t always available.

We are also trying to establish the sex of the little calf here.  I didn’t realize exactly what type of underside shots were needed for that difficult task, so we will just have to see if my shots I got are detailed enough for definite boy or girl ID.  I did get some clear photographs of the calf, tail and underside, but the many remora, hitching a ride, obscured views that allow us to establish if it is a little boy or girl.

OK, more data to follow.  Then, hopefully I’ll be able to continue with what I was working on before I got *sidetracked* on this very interesting ID project. :-) 

Carol [amending post below with more data]

*Update* calf, that is officially named “Happy” is a little female, we were able to tell from this close crop below: note, remora were again “almost” in the way of ID this time, but not quite.... :

Tony Wu’s 2009 ‘Summary of Humpback Whale Calf IDs from Tonga’ will have *Happy* added to it and luckily I was able to photograph both sides of the mother and calf.  The crop of the cookie cutter shark hole in mom’s fin will definitely be able to be seen from any topside photograph of her left pectoral fin.  Here is a closer crop of that interesting ID feature.  Actually, this mother has two cookie cutter shark bites that go clear through her left pectoral fin, but the second one is farther up her fin, smaller and harder to see.  This is the one we used to help ID the mother and it will clearly show up in subsequent, above-water photographs of her left pectoral fin:

Here is the alternate, right side view of the mother and calf.  They swam to murkier water near one of the islands, so the water is not as clear.  Still, it is very good to have both left and right sides of mother and calf photographed underwater for ID purposes!

Now, I’ll see if I have any more “new” calves to add!  Sure was a great year for humpback whale babies, which makes me very proud!  Best, Carol