...I had been thinking about when the whales showed up the day before and the day of Thanksgiving in 2013...and then I thought about how I almost had a scheduled today to dig into some archives with someone...
...well, glad it's not Thanksgiving yet...and glad the archive-digging didn't happen...
...I am now about convinced that J Pod reads my emails!
...at just before 8 a.m. I heard a call that made me think that J Pod was here...I bolt out the door and go to Lime Kiln where I have a good scanning view...the calls were not in close but they were clearly in Haro Strait and not terribly far away...
Oh, and the Park Rangers put up the Christmas wreaths on the lighthouse yesterday...so I took the opportunity...
...I get back home and play back the recording and there I find 3 calls, spread apart by several minutes: 8:35, 8:50, and 8:58 a.m. and that was it.
...I continued listening and nothing...
...1:00pm Capt. Jim calls me to tell me that J Pod whales are coming down Haro Strait but are north of Sidney Island, some on the east side of Haro...and later I find that some are on the west side of Haro...
...that might explain who I heard in the morning and why the calls were so brief and spread...I certainly don't know the answer for sure...however, it might explain why the calls were so few and far between...the Lime Kiln hydrophones will pick up calls between some of the Canadian Gulf Islands...example...the first time documented is when I was at Lime Kiln and Simon was with Transients. They were behind some of those islands and when they crossed one of the passes, I think it's Hughes Pass, the Lime Kiln hydrophones would pick up their calls when they were in that opening, which was only for a few moments...
...so maybe J Pod was 'wandering' around in and among some of those places earlier in the day...
...I went to County Park to watch and wait...the whales stalled out at Kellett Bluff and looked to be spread across for three or more miles...they were foraging and not going anywhere...glad I was dressed warmly :)
...soon I went to Lime Kiln to watch them...still spread out all across the strait..
...I only saw a few, Slick J-16, Scarlet J-50 'catching up' again, Echo J-42 who was with Scarlet for a while, then she moved offshore...I also saw Shachi J-19...several males in the distance...could only make out Mike J-26...
...and the end of the day...well it was nice to see the whales...know they are under that beautiful sky...
...who knows where they will be tomorrow...
...we don't know for sure, unless someone up north has seen J Pod at least 8 days ago...I say 8 days because they can circumnavigate Vancouver Island in 10 days...and it has been 14 days since we last heard from J Pod...That was on the Lime Kiln hydrophones and it was thought they had gone north...
...maybe they were feasting on that strong chum salmon run, that was really good in many locations or maybe they had heard about the huge Chinook salmon that had made it to the Wonnack River, Canada...
...glad the mystery of 'where had J Pod gone' is solved enough to know they were here today!
2 comments:
My daughter, Elysse & I were listening all day yesterday. What a treat to finally hear them again!!
Most definitely it was a treat! Warms your heart and makes one smile.
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