Wednesday, June 18, 2014

6/17-18/14 All Grouped Up Just For the Sea Plane!

Tuesday/Wednesday, June 17-18th
...down island they came in a hurry...spent the day off the lower west side - foraging...there must have been lots of salmon because they just stayed and stayed...
...and they didn't make it up island before dark...in fact they woke me up at 5:45 a.m. the next morning (Wed) vocalizing over the Lime Kiln hydrophones!
...I made it to the park in time to see the last of them already passed...back up island and made it in time to home to watch them go by...spread out...
...just like last evening there were some breaches in the distance...the whales stalled out near the Orca Sound hydrophones...and then continued on up island...
...out on Maya's Westside Charters in the morning...we met the whales in Swanson Channel not far from the lower entrance to Active Pass...
...at one point a sea plane was landing and wanted to get to their dock...sorry - whales are in the way!...or so it looked from our angle...
...the sea plane slowly changed its direction (the dock is behind and to the right of the sea plane) and appeared to also be watching the whales...I bet that doesn't happen very often...maybe from 1,000 feet above, but not from eight feet above the surface of the water!
...I have no idea if the whales had reacted to the sea plane - what might they hear or sense during its landing and taxiing?...curious...this image is from just before I started the video...
...sorry it's rather choppy in places...


...it first appeared they were all in this group, but I knew I hadn't seen Granny J-2 yet today... 
...and when I learned that Granny J-2 was up ahead at the entrance to Active Pass, it seemed she was waiting for the tide to change before entering the Pass...I've seen the whales doing this type behavior before so maybe they were just waiting for her signal to move on ahead...


...we didn't see them go through Active Pass, but met them on the other side on our afternoon trip...




...and on up to the Fraser River they went...

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