{"id":2358,"date":"2025-11-28T16:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T05:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/2358-flip-flop-slap.html"},"modified":"2025-11-28T16:12:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T05:42:46","slug":"flip-flop-slap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/2358-flip-flop-slap.html","title":{"rendered":"Flip Flop Slap"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- s9ymdb:3027 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"serendipity_image_center\" width=\"1024\" height=\"580\" src=\"\/serendipity\/uploads\/land_photos\/147-_MG_6900-Edit.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br \/>\n<br \/>\nFrom the corner of my eye I caught some movement not too far away and heard a loud slap as I turned toward the disturbance. There was white water thrown into the air, but not the mist normally accompanying a surfacing whale.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThen up rose the magnificent fluke of a humpback whale. It lingered high above the water for a moment or two before coming back down again with an almighty slap, sending sea spray everywhere.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nI watched for a few moments, just taking in the spectacle, as the whale flapped and slapped some more, not thinking I had time for any photos. I was expecting this wonderful display to be brief, but a minute later the exhibition continued. Out came my camera and I got plenty more flaps and slaps before the whale gave one last slap, proceeded to roll around on its back for a while, then descended below the surface.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nA moment later the whale broke the surface with that familiar plume of exhaled mist before heading off on its way.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThere are all sorts of reasons why humpback whales slap their flukes, but this time around I am sure it was just for the fun of it.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>\n#Norway #Skjervoy #TailFlap #HumpbackWhale #Whale #MarineMammals #AnimalBehaviour<br \/>\n<br \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the corner of my eye I caught some movement not too far away and heard a loud slap as I turned toward the disturbance. There was white water thrown into the air, but not the mist normally accompanying a surfacing whale. Then up rose the magnificent fluke of a humpback whale. It lingered high &#8230; <a title=\"Flip Flop Slap\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/2358-flip-flop-slap.html\" aria-label=\"Read more about Flip Flop Slap\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}