Whale Gymnastics: Back Layouts and Shoulder Rolls
Sometimes the humpbacks do what, in human terms, appear to be back layouts and shoulder rolls. We don't know - of course - what the whales call them. But given advances in using computers to interpret animal vocalizations (for example, most recently discovering that elephants may use unique audible names among themselves), perhaps there will be a way to correlate the sounds humpbacks make when they do or see (or feel) particular movements. So perhaps someday people will know what humpbacks call this move (that seems to us to be a back layout):
A-1131A2747-Enhanced-NR-1-4
A-131A2749-Enhanced-NR-3
A-2750131A2750-4
A-2754131A2754-4
or this move (another back layout):
A-19910M0A1991
A-30M0A1999-Enhanced-NR
A-0M0A2008-Enhanced-NR
A-0M0A2011-Enhanced-NR
A-0M0A2015-Enhanced-NR
A-0M0A2017-Enhanced-NR
A-0M0A2023-Enhanced-NR
or this move, that looks like a shoulder roll (even though humpbacks don't have shoulders in a human sense, notwithstanding their pectorals), finished off with a very large, blue-water splash:
A-2131A2559-Enhanced-NR-2-2
A-131A2560-Enhanced-NR
A-A-2564131A2564-Enhanced-NR
A-2578131A2578-Enhanced-NR
Comments
After a lifetime of mainly expressing myself with words, my postings here will mainly rely on images. They will speak for themselves to some extent, but I'll usually add a few comments of explanation. I've taken photographs for decades, since the 1950's, inspired in part by my father's photographic skill. Four years of photo assignments and quality darkroom time eventually gave way to decades of casual and family picture-taking. I re-immersed myself when I left film and turned to digital.