3-27-14 Pacific White Sides and Baby Killer Whales Too!

Thursday, March 27th
...sun shining and the water 'standing still'...I just had to go down to the park and do a bit of scanning...if there was something out there surely I would see it on a morning like this...it was about 10:30...offshore and off in the distance to the south of where I was I saw what I thought were Dall's porpoise...they were all over the place and zipping this way and that...
...I kept scanning for what else I might find...
...several minutes later I could see that those 'Dall's' were no longer visible...and then I looked close in...they were moving fast and heading toward the west side of the island...and then I saw some leaping - those weren't Dall's those were Pacific white sided dolphins!
...they went out of my view, so I drove down island...and when I spotted them next, they were heading, at speed, up island...I followed them...they kept up a steady pace...
...they came past the lighthouse, all less than a 1/4 mile from shore...

...I never thought I would see about 100 Pacific white sides (aka Lags) this close to shore...
...out on Maya's Westside Charters for an afternoon trip, hoping the Lags would still be in the area...they were!

...I have only seen a large group three other times and each encounter has been different...today the slow motion was amazing...we were moving extremely slowly and some of them were too, allowing for some of the best images I've ever gotten...

...Western Prince was out there and they had a GoPro camera under the surface and lifted up and then back down...really interesting...check out this YouTube video...
...and here's another viewing perspective of the Lags...a video clip from the Peregrine...

...we left the Lags and went to East Pt to see the Steller sea lions...today there was a California sea lion hauled out with them...

...we got word that some Transients had come down through one of the passes and were in Trincomali Channel coming down...
...as we arrived on scene we could see three groups...
...these two boys traveling together...last year T65A2 had us all wondering...

...then a mom and baby and two others...here's three of them...the fourth was T65A3...

...and then there was another group and there was a baby in that group too!

...this is T65A's fifth offspring...and might have already been seen by the researchers up north...it's the first time I've seen this baby in these waters...

...there was evidently another group not too far from us, but they had taken a different route...no telling where they may all be tomorrow...