12-24-14 There Was More Going On Here

Wednesday, December 24th
...the day before Christmas and all through the day, J Pod showed up with travel, breaching, and play!
...that's Jones Island in the distance...

...in the opposite direction...

...what a treat for those on the international ferry...

...before the whales entered Spieden Channel...

...at this point it looked as if most of the whales were heading north and were going to pass between the east end of Spieden Island and Flat Top Island, but that changed quickly!
...it wasn't long before another boat came along...and seeing the way in which the people on the boat were looking, well, it seemed that there might be some other whales coming into Spieden Channel and closer to shore...

...it was very interesting to see Cookie J-38 and Granny J-2 traveling together...and that was definitely 'traveling together'...

...several minutes later Granny surfaced...

...Cookie J-38 was behind her...

...what I find significant about Cookie and Granny traveling together is that it's not common...Cookie is most often with his family and especially Rhapsody J-32 before she died earlier in December.  For Cookie to be with Granny, something is going on.
...I didn't see them for a long time today but on enough surfacings to conclude that they were together, at least for a while, and they were not mixed in with others when I saw them go by...
...off in the distance the J14s and others were moving into Spieden Channel...

...behind Granny and Cookie were Mako J-39 and Onyx L-87...

...Mako was born the same year as Cookie and they have been buddies all along...so considering the circumstances it didn't surprise me to see him with Onyx L-87 - but then again this is all summation on my part...
...also seeing Mako with Onyx reminded me of March of 2009 and an encounter with J Pod off the west side...the prior summer Mako's mom, Blossom J-11, had died, so the time frame was much different than the time frame of Rhapsody's dying and today, which is a period of just three weeks...
...however, back then Granny J-2 and Ruffles J-1 were with Blossom's three offspring - Blackberry J-27, Tuschi J-31, and Mako J-39 and they were quite far offshore from the rest of J Pod...they were moving in almost slow motion, intermingling, and in close proximity to one another...after a while Granny J-2 and Mako J-39 moved off and traveled toward shore, while the other three stayed where they were...
...Granny and Mako traveling together, well that too was unusual...

...to me, these are examples as to how complex they are in their society, their intelligence and emotional abilities...it sure seemed as if there was something much more than these two whales traveling together today...

-back to the encounter...
...the majority of the whales were on the north side of Spieden Channel...I did see some members of all the family groups, except none of the J16s did I see...they are an independent group and are off doing their thing...
...as the whales moved along west in the channel...I was lucky enough to get a picture of the Fallow Deer on the hill above the whales! Fun stuff!!

...as they left my view it looked like Granny might be making a turn toward the down island route but by dark they hadn't shown up...