Tuesday, April 14, 2015

4-14-15 Baby J-51 and Notch J-47

Tuesday, April 14th
...after those brief Transient calls...I was later awakened by more calls at about 1:40 a.m....
...they continued for about two and a half hours...then quiet and then started up again at about 6:00 a.m. last heard at 7:43 on Lime Kiln hydrophones...
...during all those hours they were sometimes on the Orca Sound hydrophones, sometimes Lime Kiln, and sometimes both at the same time...
...the most interesting part to me is that I heard mainly just two calls...
...not the 'angry cat' kind of call I am used to...but this other...I've heard it before...
...this time, however, I heard mainly only these two calls, spaced apart most of the time, like on this recording...

...what does it mean?  I haven't a clue...I just find it interesting...
...out on Maya's Westside Charters for an afternoon trip...just as we were leaving the harbor I hear that J pod has been spotted to the north...but no one had located those 'talkative whales' from early this morning...
...some nasty seas were brewing as we left the harbor, but luckily we were going away from them!...over to the east side of Orcas Island in some very sunny, calm seas and J pod whales...evidently they were spread for many miles...we saw a small group only, and a few in the distance here and there but too far to even get a proof of presence image...
...baby J-51 was with J-41 and Notch J-47!...who knows how playful they were under the surface, but we mostly saw them together like this...

...Notch's mom, Tahlequah J-35 and Shachi J-19 were off to themselves...they too were either having some fun or they were people watching...they were definitely entertaining the humans - they kept us all in amazement!...the way they were 'just there' made it really looked like they were watching us!
...several minutes later they were in the distance...
...at one point Eclipse was at the surface, not not going anywhere...I could see J-51 just under the surface...
 ...so I zoomed in...

...Our encounter was brief but we managed to miss those nasty seas and rain, which had moved through...
..I wonder if the whales will continue down Rosario or turn and go back north...

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