Wendy’s Whale Watching Trip

Wendy's Whale Watching Trip

by Wally Gutierrez "How will we know when whales are close? Will we hear them?" asked Wendy. She was whale watching for the very first time. The thought of seeing a whale up close made her very excited. "Whales can make different sounds. They can talk by clicking and whistling," said the captain of the boat, the Mermaid. "Look! Over there!" yelled Wendy, as she pointed to a whale jumping out of the water. Everyone was thrilled to see such a wonderful sight. "That is called breaching," explained the captain. "Breaching is when a whale launches itself out of the water before crashing back down. A whale can do this

Breaching whale

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because of its tail, which is made of muscle. A whale's tail is different from a fish's tail. A fish's tail moves from side to side. A whale's tail lies flat and moves up and down to push the whale through the water. Large front flippers control the direction the whale is swimming."

"You may also have noticed that a whale's body is shaped like a fish," the captain continued. "But a whale is not a fish. It is a mammal. Horses, dogs, and cats are all mammals. Even people are mammals. But instead of hair or fur, a whale has a deep layer of fat under its skin called blubber to keep itself warm."

"I saw some bumps around the whale's mouth. What are they?" asked Wendy.

"Those bumps are called callosities," answered the captain. "They are caused by little creatures like barnacles and worms that live on some whales. The whale you just saw was a right whale."

The captain explained that another way to spot whales is to watch for them to spout as they come up for air. "A whale has a hole on the top of its head. This is called a blowhole. Some whales, like the right whale, have two blowholes. Whales breathe through these holes

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the way we breathe through our noses. When a whale comes up for air, it blows out the old air from its lungs. This air is mixed with tiny drops of water, so it looks like a spray of water."

"Oh! That whale is spouting!" shouted Wendy. "The spouts can reach as high as 25 feet," added the captain. "After a whale spouts, it breathes fresh air into its lungs. Usually, whales will go to the surface and spout every 4 to 10 minutes. But some whales can swim for an hour without needing more air."

Right whale

Some time later, the passengers spotted a mother and a baby whale. "Isn't a baby whale called a calf?" asked Wendy. "That's right," answered the captain. "And

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they're huge when they're born. Sometimes as big as 14 feet long." Wendy looked through her binoculars and saw that the mother and her calf seemed to have stopped swimming. She noticed that the mother seemed to be keeping her baby near her with her long flipper. What she could not see was the mother squirting milk into the calf's mouth. The captain described the details. "Like other mammals, whales feed their babies milk that comes from their bodies. A whale's milk has about 10 times more fat than a cow's milk."

Wendy thought of another question. "What will the baby whale eat when it grows up?"

"Well," the captain answered, "there are two types of whales. Toothed whales have teeth. Baleen whales don't. A baleen whale's mouth is filled with a stiff hair-like material called baleen. It looks like a big brush. The baleen lets food pass into the whale's mouth. Right whales are baleen whales. They love to eat tiny, shrimplike animals called krill."

"Whales like to feed and travel in groups," said the captain. "Groups of whales are sometimes called pods. Whales move or migrate to find food or to find a mate. The warm water here off the coast of Florida is a perfect

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place for a newborn baby whale. In the summer, these right whales will leave the warm ocean to travel back to the colder waters up north."

Whale family

As the boat headed back to the harbor, Wendy thought that seeing and learning about whales made this her best trip ever!

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