They swim. It's really free. It's a beautiful thing to see. They sing.

The title of this blog post is from "Whale Song" by Pearl Jam. You should check it out because it's a funky cool rock song about whales and whaling. What I really want to post though, is a video of a whale, swimming free and singing its song. 

This film is an encounter with Sweetheart and her calf Heartthrob. An hour long encounter unique in the fact that it was the first time in our twenty years of research that a mother allowed a calf to interact directly with us in total trust. 

We name the whales mnemonically. We give them a name associated with a bodily marking or personality trait which helps us to remember and quickly recognise them in future encounters. 

Sweetheart, the mother, is named after a heart shaped marking she has near her dorsal fin. She is with her new calf Heartthrob who is only a few months old. Calves remain with their mother for about a year. Sweetheart had a calf in 1998 named Heartsong and a calf in 1999 named Heartbeat. The two escorts are also whales that are very well known to us. Their names are Nebo and Demi.