Sunday, October 20th
...the sound of silence woke me up at about 5a.m....nothing broadcasting over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...thought it might be my computer, but not...it appeared they were down...at 7:20 I tried again and they were working - good!...20 minutes later I hear calls!! Resident calls!
...on and off the Lime Kiln hydrophones for quite a while - K pod calls...then quiet again for about 45 minutes...and then J pod calls!
...well, this time there must be some Chum salmon coming in because we had whales and lots of them!
...Granny J-2 was one of the first whales we spotted...and surprisingly Kasatka L-82 and Finn L-116 were right behind her!...that was unusual...but I could see the rest of L82's family in shore, way in the distance...Granny was at least a 1/2 mile off shore if not more...
...the more we looked the more whales we saw - in shore off shore - slowly moving up and down island, foraging, socializing, and all mixed up!
...Sonata and his mom sharing that fish or strategizing?...
...Scoter K-25 was way out there...
...and with that piece of metal still sticking out of him...
...lots of other males...Lobo K-26, Solstice L-89, Tika K-33, Mako J-39, Cappuccino K-21, Onyx L-87 - of course he was by far the farthest offshore...some of the older males appeared to be foraging individually, while some of the younger ones were in some interesting groups mixing social time with eating time!...Mega L-41, Blackberry J-27 and others were mixed in with females and kids...
...Rhapsody J-32 popped up with a group...and then she burst through the surface with a salmon just in front of her...(of course I wasn't quick enough)...a few moments later...I did get her with the salmon's tail!
...I wondered about the brown color, so I looked up Chum salmon and it seemed to match...
...the whales spent all day long making their way up island...passing Lime Kiln Lighthouse...
...but that wasn't to be the only time they passed by the lighthouse on this day......passing outside of Andrews Bay...this image is a great example of distance distortion...from those chairs to that boat it's at least a 1/4 mile!
...Granny was in the lead and it looked like they were continuing up...
...but it wasn't long before they began to go this way and that and soon they were heading over to Canada and down island...
...however a few came back toward the west side...
...and ended with the sounds of their blows...
...but not really because I continued to hear their vocalizing for a few more hours...
I'm glad to know that at least for now they are
spending time in their waters,
at the time of year they normally do,
eating the food that they normally eat at this time of year,
in places they have historically done.
That's how is should be during the spring and summer.
BUT,
No fish - No Residents.
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