Tuesday, February 25, 2020

2-25-2020 J Pod Came Down in the Early Hours

Tuesday, February 25th


04:15 oh, so early and oh so extremely faint were the calls of J Pod whales.  As faint as those calls were I thought that maybe they had come down Rosario Strait and were crossing over to the Strait of Juan de Fuca...so here I was, taking my time, after all it was very dark outside...too early to go anywhere,
...but time can go by quickly when you have your eyes and ears focused on what you had recorded...
...it was now about 7 a.m. and 'all of a sudden' there were faint echolocation clicks coming over the Lime Kiln hydrophones. How about just throwing on anything I could to keep warm and getting out the door...asap!
...but when I got to the shore I saw only one whale...well, thank you very much, you're the first whale I have seen in a month!  She was about 1/3 mile offshore going down island slowly and had already passed the lighthouse...I could see no others...hmmm...
...couldn't stand it - had to go down island a short way to see if others were there..I saw her again, still going down island but no others in view...
...scanning farther offshore and everywhere I thought I saw an adult male as he dove...but he was so far across Haro Strait that I could not confirm...

...then I heard a few brief J Pod calls off Lime Kiln...I could never locate who was 'attached' to those calls. 

...so they had not come down Rosario...they had come down one of many ways that would take them to Haro Strait...I say it that way because they were north of Nanaimo a couple days prior.
...they have come down through the Canadian Gulf islands on rare occasions, but only they know for sure...
...I saw a research boat go down island...hmmm, but I didn't think the whales went that way...

...so it was now only about 8:30 and there were no more hearings of vocals of the whales...but at 11:30 some strange sounds began.  I immediately sent a short clip to the researcher and he contacted a research vessel out there...then he asked me where J Pod was...I made a call and learned that they were in the Strait of Juan de Fuca - way out of range of whatever this vessel noise was...

But then came vocals of the whales at the same time as this weird sound was happening.  Strangest thing is that it appeared they were playing a recording from that vessel of the whales...
...this went on until 2:10 pm when they ended and then moved on their way...

...I was scanning and scanning, the water was calm, so if whales had been out there I should have been able to see them...and if you looked at what came over the hydrophones did not appear on the spectrogram like 'real' vocals would have...
...what is most curious is why was that vessel broadcasting vocals of orcas into the water...I didn't think anyone was supposed to do that.

...in addition K Pod had come in with J Pod on Feb 19th but K Pod has not been seen since that day and they could be anywhere, as could L Pod...so...

...I would imagine that that vessel knew that J Pod was far away...they likely had been in contact with someone...just a guess, but I can't imagine any research group doing this...so that's why.

Crazy day...
I saw a whale...
Only the second time in 2020...
Hopefully the third time won't be too long from now!









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