6-10-16 Clues Provided by the Behaviors of the Whales

Friday, June 10th

...well the Residents may have given us a good example (from my comment in post 2 on June 7th) about information the whales are giving the humans through their locations...

...at 1:30 a.m.(Friday) the last of them were heard over the Orca Sound hydrophones (over 4 hours of vocalizing)...8 hours later they were at the Sandheads (near the mouth of the Fraser River)...by 11:00 a.m. they were nearing the Coal Docks (same area as the Tsawwassen ferry terminal B.C. mainland, south of the city of Vancouver) by 1:00 pm they were already at Pt. Roberts heading east...and by 4 pm they were heading down Rosario Strait approaching Lummi Island.
...that wasn't much time, if any, to stop for foraging...

...out on Peregrine with Capt. Jim at the helm, we arrive on scene in some very, very choppy water...to add to that the whales were spread for miles...
...getting glimpses of the whales I could see Lobo K-26, Granny J-2, Hy'Shqa J-37, Sequim K-12, Saturna K-43, Shachi J-19, Eclipse J-41 and Nova J-51...on the way back we stopped briefly to see the J16s...
..I always want to get images of Granny J-2, the matriarch of the entire Southern Resident Community...

...out again, the seas were friendly now, we head over toward the top of Rosario where some of the whales were going down...

 ...there we saw Cappuccino K-21...

...ahead of him were Opus K-16 and Sonata K-35-they usually travel together though K-21 is not part of her matriline...and we saw Mike J-26, Alki J-36 and Sonic J-52...

...but we couldn't locate the matriarch, Slick J-16, and her other two - Echo J-42 and Scarlet J-50...we had seen them earlier, so they were around somewhere!...they knew where each other was, it was just us humans who didn't know :)
...we also saw Rainshadow K-37 with his mom Sequim K-12 and Saturna K-43...

...Granny was way in shore with some others...

So, throughout the day:
...all of Group A was present (J2, L87, J14s, J19s), the J16s were present, the K12s, K14s, Cappuccino K-21 and the K16s were present...but where was Group B? (J11s, J17s, J22s)...there was some chatter that others had seen some of them...they just hadn't been in our view...it appears they all left together this time...however, twice this year a family group or two has stayed behind when all the others departed for the open ocean...so it's a wonder until someone sees Group B whales out west with the rest...


...I'm writing this on Saturday early afternoon and got word that the whales are headed out...
...that's just one more piece of information telling us just how much food there is in here for them.