Southern right whale at Logans Beach

                                                        Odd Lips with a calf she brought to Logans Beach during a previous visit.

UPDATE, 4.30PM: Warrnambool’s whale season is heating up.

Anticipation is rising that a southern right whale and calf will take up residency at Logans Beach after “Odd Lips” was again sighted there on Monday.

Avid whale watcher Peter Read said “Odd Lips” had made visits to Logans Beach for about the past seven days and the expectation was that she was soon to give birth.

Odd Lips has brought a calf to Logans Beach twice before.

Mr Read said she was behaving differently to other years by alternating between coming close to shore and going well offshore and then disappearing for periods of time.

Previously she had stuck close to Logans Beach before giving birth, he said.

Mr Read said another two southern rights were sighted off the Warrnambool breakwater and in Lady Bay on Monday afternoon but they moved off later in the afternoon.

He said the two were likely to be young males looking to mate with a female.

EARLIER: Whale fans are hoping a southern right whale sighted off Logans Beach today is ‘Odd Lips’ who is a good chance to calve.

Odd Lips was at Logans Beach for three days last week and whale watchers believe her several appearances indicate she is likely to give birth.

Avid whale watcher Peter Read said there was a southern right about 2.5 kilometres off shore this morning with a pod of humpback whales about three kilometres further out.

He said he had not yet been able to positively identify the whale as Odd Lips, who has twice visited Logans Beach to give birth.

The arrival of whales is later than normal but Mr Read said late June to early July was the prime time for whales and he expected more whales would arrive soon.

“There are other whales at Armstrong Bay, west of Warrnmabool,” he said.

Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) environment programs officer Mandy Watson said coming and going was normal behaviour for whale cows before calving and she was confident ‘Odd Lips’ would bring a calf to Logans Beach.

She was able to identify ‘Odd Lips’ last week with the use of photographs taken by ‘citizen scientists,’ volunteers who supply DELWP with photos of whales they had spotted.

Source: https://www.standard.net.au/