8-16-14 How Can 13 Whales Seem Like 50?

Saturday, August 16th
...the fog re-appeared and so did whales...
...Group A had evidently come down from the north in the night...not heard from County Park, and not heard over the hydrophones - or I slept through them, because they showed up several mile south of here...
..Group A began working their way back north and made it to the west side, passing Lime Kiln Pt. State Park at about 3:00 p.m.
...Mike was in the lead with his mom, Slick J-16 and Granny J-2...

...Shachi J-19 came along...not far behind were Alki J-36, Eclipse J-41 and Echo J-42...not sure who this is...

...when they got closer it was Eclipse J-41 and Echo J-42 who were surfacing together...

...and it was Echo who had something on her head...

...it was a stick!

...Onyx L-87 was way offshore...
...the last group approaching were the J14s...all five of them traveling in a loose group...I left to get on the Peregrine of Maya's Westside Charters...we weren't on the water a few minutes when I thought I saw a Pacific white sided dolphin, but there appeared to be only one, like the other day (see that post-with a really cool pic of the dolphin)
...it was barely coming up but when it did it was fast, not like porpoise at all...then all of a sudden some of the J14s, who on their last surfacing were well over 200 yards from us going up island, crossed our bow with huge porpoising...they were going after the Pacific white side!

...at least three of them...Hy'Shqa J-37, little J-49, and Samish J-14...

...and I think Se-Yi-Chn J-45 was with them, but the whales were going fast too and away from us...

...at least I got the dorsal fin of the Pacific white sided dolphin...

...the whales, all 13 of them, were spread out and crisscrossed during the entire trip...I knew there were only 13 whales present but it seemed more like about 50 whales...it was very surreal...
...that's a great example of what has been happening...people are thinking there are 'so many whales' but if they don't know who they are seeing they won't realize that there are very few members of the Southern Resident Community in here...why?...not enough food.

...they had been inshore...zoomed out to the Pacific white sided dolphin and were now zooming back in toward shore...

...they were being very social...

...one of the J16 kids moving off from Turn Pt. over toward the rest of her family group who were on the other side of that tanker, the J16s were now the trailers! (two of the J16s were in the lead when the passed Lime Kiln several hours before)

...back up to the Fraser River I would imagine...