Thursday, September 19, 2013

9-19-13 It Was All Pretty Nice!

Thursday, September 19th
...after a few days of transients here and there...and yesterday T20 and T21 coming up Haro Strait in the late afternoon, with more transients on their way in, I expected today would be a day full of Ts all over the place...

...6:45 a.m whales coming up island...but they were completely quiet on the hydrophones...it wasn't long before I saw three whales, transients, coming past Low Island going up...and it was only a few minutes later that I hear Resident calls on the Lime Kiln hydrophones...this time they sounded like they were offshore, so maybe I had time to get to the park...
...I saw Slick J-16 as I was hurrying down the hill to the lighthouse...
...soon I saw Mike J-26, her oldest offspring...it was only 7:30...and I would end up sitting there until about 11:00! Nice!
...they came by slowly, some of them foraging as they went...
...DoubleStuf J-34 way off shore...
...they trickled by, one by one...then four came along, a few quickly...Shachi J-19 was up ahead and Eclipse J-41, Alki J-36, and Echo J-42 were porpoising behind her...two in this splash!



...after a while I saw the NOAA boat out with their net scooping up prey samples maybe?...that would be Nice...

...a bird framed that nicely!
...it was obvious by now that some of the whales were mixed in many different groupings...some of the K13s were together though...Scoter passed by close enough for this image...I've noticed that the whales I have seen with tags, have a grey area around the tag wound...it's pretty noticeable in this image.  And he still has the piece of metal protruding from his body- this is Not Nice...

...we could see more groups approaching...
...then they got here...
...a few looked like they were going to come in and 'say hello'...
...
...and they slowly moved on up island...it was now 11 a.m.

...I was curious to see who was here...but in the end it looked like most, but not all, were present.  Nice!
...I had been looking for the whereabouts of Nigel L-95...I hadn't seen him with the rest of his family recently-ha!
...looks like he's maybe been hanging out with Group B and the L12s group...oh, they are mixing it up!
 

...and the rest of the day had not even begun...next post...



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