Wednesday, August 3, 2016

8-3-16 They Passed By the Park in the Early Evening

Wednesday, 8-3-16
...(I've missed some days and will fill them in soon)..
...now back to today!
...in coming whales all day long...last time they made it in here it was in the middle of the night...this time it was still daylight when they came across from Discovery Island toward San Juan Island...sometimes they will go down island and sometimes up...
...this time they chose UP!!...it was a very strong current going up and the whales sure took advantage of it...they appeared to be using the current to take them along but at the same time they were not zooming through as they can...so that indicates to me that they were conserving energy as were heading up...that is except for Echo and Scarlet!
...in the lead - well - what do you know! Alki J-36 and Sonic J-52 - again!  They have been up front way ahead of the rest of their family group several times now...
...Hy' Shqa J-37 and several others surprised us by surfacing just passed the lighthouse...didn't know they were even in the area but later saw they had made some really loud calls as they passed by quite close to shore...
...Granny J-2, Shachi J-19 were more in the middle of the whales who were spread from in close to way off shore...off from Shachi was Eclipse J-41 and Nova J-51...
...Princess Angeline's J-17 family was quite a ways offshore...I got a glimpse of Polaris's notch and saw her little one, J-54, and a few others, but they were too far off to ID all of them...the sun created back lighting which didn't help matters...
...also offshore were the L4s - Nugget L-55, and with her was Lapis L-103, baby L-123, and Finn L-116 - Nugget's grandoffspring...Finn's mother was not traveling right with them...
...there was a lot of echolocating...didn't see much foraging though...
...Mako was in the middle of it, his brother way offshore...
...also in about the middle were the rest of the J16 family...Slick J-16 was in the lead, Echo J-42 and Scarlet J-50 were goofing around and behind them was Mike J-26...
...Moonlight L-83 and Midnight L-110 were together and with them was baby L-122...I had seen Muncher L-91 surfacing without her calf, and was relieved to see the calf with Moonlight and Midnight...
...the last whale to pass by was Crewser L-92...

...all in all it appeared that all family groups of J Pod were present and that the 19 whales of L pod who travel together were here...but I'm not sure if I saw Racer L-72 and her offspring Fluke L-105...they may have passed by with that group in the beginning who surfaced past us, but I'm not sure...Racer and Fluke were not with the other Ls when they came in the last time, so they might have stayed out again this time...just don't know for sure...
some images from the pass by:










...they continued north...it sounded as though they were taking a route common to them and heading toward the Fraser River...

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