BUDDING photographer 14-year-old Luke Purdie took these spectacular shots of a pod of humpback whales frolicking in the waters off Boat Rock, North Stradbroke Island on Saturday.
The year 9 student at Kimberly College said he used a steady hand and a strong zoom lens to capture the antics from his dad’s boat, which was offshore Cylinders Beach.
“It was a bit of luck and a good zoom on the camera,” he said.
From June to November, the humpback whales pass the North Gorge headland on their annual migration from Antarctica to calving grounds near the Great Barrier Reef.
For those who don’t have a boat, the headland at Point Lookout is about 35m above sea level, and is one of the best-land based whale watching sites in the world with a boardwalk around the foreshore and gorges.
Luke said he saw the pod breaching and blowing water from their blowholes on the top of their heads.
The whales release up to 450km/hr and can reach up to 5m in height making it visible from a distance of up to 2km.
For those who want to go whale watching at Straddie, look out for a greasy “footprint” on the surface of the water, which is left from the flukes, or the whale’s tail.
Luke was also lucky to capture on film a “Pectoral Fin Extension”, a move by the whale which creates waves while the whale lies on its back, slapping its fins on to the surface of the water.
The pod also gave viewers an eyeful with plenty of tail slaps, which can often be heard for kilometres and is a way of communicating with other whales.
