8/21-22/14 Peregrine Falcon Takes Center Stage

Thursday, August 21st
...they woke me up...not quite 3:00 a.m....K Pod calls...I knew K pod (except the K Klik- K21, K16 and K35) had been up near the Fraser River with J Pod...and from what I was hearing there were lots of K pod calls, but no J pod calls...so maybe J pod didn't come down?
...it was four hours later, about 7:00 a.m. when I heard a few faint calls on the Lime Kiln hydrophones...bolting out the door and to the park...I see only one blow...that's it...
...so I still didn't know who actually was here...


...later...before we even saw the whales in the afternoon Capt. Jim stopped along Henry Island where there is a cormorant rookery...and guess what?...a peregrine falcon was there...this had the coloring of a fledgling and soon it was chasing after a cormorant - we were all shocked...never seen anything like it...extremely fast it was!...

...he already had food and maybe saw an opportunity to get ahead on meal planning...see the feather below his beak?

...and when he took flight he was taking some of his previous catch with him...

...on to the whales...who were coming up island..it was the K12s, K13s and the K14s but no one else...

...since they don't all surface at the exact same moment it's a challenge to get lots of fin tips up...a resting pattern helps, which is what they were doing...a total of 16 whales were present...

...they changed direction and came back down island...
...Scoter K-25 still with that piece of metal sticking out of him from when he was tagged almost 2 years ago...

...and down island they went on Thursday afternoon...

...and then on Friday 8/22 - poof! - gone!

...during our trip we saw some friends, so the Capt. went over and asked Kenny to hold up his catch...see the fish?

...we didn't either!
...not much in the way of salmon out there for the humans or the whales...it's a very sad state of affairs for this area...at the moment anyway...
...the Fraser River Panel said today that it is unprecedented that 95% of the salmon were coming down from the north to the Fraser River...
...I don't know the answer but wouldn't the ones that went out that way come back in that same way?
...and if that is the case, then what happened to the ones who supposedly went out through these waters?
...were there only a few who made it out?
...and if they do return the same way they went out that is possibly speaking volumes that something is very wrong going on in these waters from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Haro Strait, and all these inland areas the salmon would travel through on their return...
...but these are all just questions on my part...I know that salmon are very complex fish...it just has me curious...