11-9-15 You Never Know what You Might See

Monday, November 9th
...yesterday was the Round the County Sailboat Race...always fun to see...with no wind I decided to get creative using the trees :)

...I was hoping to get a humpback in the mix...well one was in the mix, but I was so focused on who it was I missed getting the sailboats in the distance!

...while waiting for the boats to come down island a ways I was talking to a fella who was educating me about sailboats...
...he spotted this salamander...oh so tiny...a friend posted about this (not sure if the same species) just the day before and there were comments about it being toxic...hummmm...update:  this ia actually a rough-skinned newt and the only way it would be toxic is if you licked it...so no worries, except for maybe a doggie...
...this one was just about in hibernation/cold mode...we thought it was dead but moving it out of the path where it might get stepped on, it moved in slow motion...

...and my sailboat teaching friend is the one who first spotted the humpback!...glad he was there or I might have missed a lot :)

...in the middle of the night I was awakened by a humpback making many different sounds over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...


...today there was no word of whales...late in the afternoon I could see Peregrine coming up the strait...I grabbed my binos to see what they were up to...and instead I saw a group of porpoise, but not Dall's because these animals were bringing their bodies completely above the surface...I thought they might be Pacific white sided dolphins...NOT...I found out later that it was a group of harbor seals!..really!...the whales might have been coming across and the seals were...well...you know why...and at some point in all this there were a couple very faint calls over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...

...it wasn't until about a half hour later and after much running here and there and back home again I just decided to look and wait - no wait necessary - there was an orca! Yikes!...and then more...

...T49A1 was present - most likely the rest of the family too, and it looked like the some of the T36As...oops!  I was wrong about it being the T36As...check out the Center for Whale Research's Encounter #97...it's a great video of those whales who went by...

...maybe T49A3 and ?

...and maybe a few others...its was a nice size group...

...only a few images...they were moving quickly!