Friday, October 17, 2014

10/14-17/14 They Sure Do Get Around!

Tuesday, October 14th
...what would today bring in the way of whales?...
...well, it began at about 4:15 this morning, when extremely faint calls came over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...they were so faint I couldn't determine if Transients or Residents...there were only about a dozen calls heard over about 17 minutes...
...someone is out there...somewhere...
...by the afternoon out on Maya's Westside Charters we were in the Strait of Juan de Fuca watching humpbacks...at this time of year they seem to be moving down from the north and some making a stop in these inland waters...

...at one point we saw humpbacks spotted in four different locations on the horizon...I heard that over 10 individuals had been seen...we were heading toward some other humpbacks when, on our way the Capt. made a turn to the south..ah-ha!...something was up...
...killer whales had been spotted by Ocean Magic!
...and once on scene, I knew who I had heard in the night...the same whales who had been in Massacre Bay and by Skull Island yesterday (see prior post)...
...at first there was no big male...then one of the passengers spotted him about a mile to the south...that was T137A...in between the group we were watching and him was one other single...mom - T137...

...they were spread a good distance, but we could see they were coming back together...heading west...
...don't know why, but T137D was way behind the rest of the group...he had to do some porpoising to catch up to the others...
...just as we were leaving the scene we heard that other Transients were a couple miles away and were coming in...the T35As and T38A (see post from two days ago)...
...we made a quick pass at Race Rocks...always an amazing place...
...On to Wednesday, 10-15 - I learn from Ivan of the Western Prince that the T35As, T38A, and the T36As were all together, but the T137s were not seen...
...Then on Friday, 10-17 - I learn from Ivan that those same whales showed up outside of Friday Harbor...
They Sure Do Get Around! 

And the Residents?...well they just happened to make their first fall appearance into Puget Sound on Thursday!...

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