6-26-16 Transients Going to Unusual Places Again

Sunday, June 26th
...before leaving the dock...an unusual sighting of an osprey in the harbor...

...transients were still in the area...out on Peregrine with Capt. Jim for an afternoon trip...more transients were found coming in the Strait of Juan de Fuca...
...and that's where we headed...we arrived on scene near Albert Head, a bit west of the city of Victoria, BC...the whales were moving east in close to shore, except T77A...

...we waited until he had gone by and then moved in to get a look at the others...
...T75 and her oldest offspring, T75A were present...the T41s - T41, T41A and T41A2...and one that I couldn't figure out who she was...

...they traveled east for a while and then changed directions and as they were going back west they changed their direction again and headed directly into Witty's Lagoon...we were curious to see what they were really going to do...

...oops I spelled the name of the lagoon wrong...

 

 

 

...it was time for us to leave...back to the harbor...the next trip, Capt. Jeff was at the helm...but before we left the dock the osprey was back and a peregrine falcon was there too...

...we headed back out the Strait of Juan de Fuca to see the same whales we had been with earlier...the seas were the calmest in that direction...
...the whales were a bit west of where we had left them...and this time T77A had joined the group...the rest were still there, heading west...
...we were so close in that Race Rocks lighthouse lined up nicely in front of the Elwha Valley...I had not ever seen that before had to pause and figure that one out!

...the whales moved in close to shore and through some kelp...

...and when they approached Bentinck Island, just off Vancouver Island and near William Head we wondered if they would cut through...Jeff looked up the depths on the chart and in places it was only 2 feet deep...well we certainly weren't going in there!...
BUT the whales DID!  Amazing!

...they never cease to amaze me...

...and the Southern Residents...almost the end of June...there just isn't any salmon in here...which means there just aren't any Southern Residents in here either...
BUT...we won't give up hope...the summer Chinook run to the Fraser River is expected to begin soon...we can only hope and pray that there is enough salmon to feed the whales out in the open ocean and enough salmon to make it to the Fraser so they can spawn and start the cycle of life of the salmon again...