Hello Howard,
while scubadiving off the coast of Catalina Island in California last week,
I heard something that could be described only as, well, singing. It
sounded like a repetitive three tone "melody". Every tone was equally long,
and there was a short pause before the melody was repeated. The whole
thing lasted maybe 15 minutes. When I returned to the boat, I found two
more divers telling the same story.
I heard dolphins before, but this was different. Could it be the whales?
Thank you for your time. I tried web search but didn't come up with
anything specific.
Maja Vrvilo
Maja,
That sounds angelic, and since there are humpbacks occasionally in that
area, it wouldn't surprise me if those were humpback whale songs you were
hearing. At least I'm not familiar with any other whale songs that would
sound like that. Since Catalina isn't a mating and calving area, where
humpback songs are typically heard, but either a feeding area or a
migratory route, what you heard were probably the "truncated" songs that
are sometimes heard in the higher latitude feeding areas. It's not the
entire song, which could last for 15 or more minutes without any
repetition, but just a short segment of the song, repeated many times. That
doesn't answer the question of why the whales would be singing parts of
their songs in the feeding areas or along their migratory route, which is
anybody's guess.
Howard Garrett
Orca Network
Greenbank WA
(360) 678-3451
www.orcanetwork.org
howard@orcanetwork.org
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