7-24-10 Nugget and the Harbor Porpoise

Saturday, July 24th

...as I was taking pictures I didn't know that something else was going on as this group of whales and the L-55s (aka L4s) were moving along in a nice calm, picture opp manner up island along the west side...

...but first their calm quiet travel would be disturbed by an official type boat driving at high speed over them...they actually 'scattered a bit' for a few minutes, turning and heading back down island...

...and then got back together and moved north again...

...what totally amazes me is that the first pic I have of her with it is at 10:17 a.m. and the last pic is more than 5 hours later as she and her family group rounded Turn Pt. heading north...I was on the Peregrine of Maya's Westside Charters in the afternoon and didn't even think to look to see if she still had it...that is until I looked at my pics later...

...she didn't share it...
...her kids were on either side of her..what a great training opportunity...but she didn't seem to want to do anything other than keep it for herself...
...I believe the thought is that the whales play with them, as a toy...and the porpoise has a heart attack...but she didn't seem to even play with it...I have only one pic that shows the harbor porpoise in a different position......the harbor porpoise tail is sticking up on the far side of Nugget...

...when they rounded Turn Pt. she still had it...prior to that, I have just two pics of her without it...but that's it, every other surfacing she had it...these two images verify that it was Nugget who had the porpoise on this surfacing...

 ... over 5 hours - that's impressive...now I wonder just what was she thinking...

7-1-10 Early In The Day-A Mike and Canuck Moment

Thursday, July 1st
I put together several images...it's not video but as close as I can make it...the whales were moving slowly...they stopped right in front of me...

...as Mike J-26 begins to surface part way through the clip, you can see his dorsal fin is laying over and then on Canuck's L-7 back...

...earlier in the year when Canuck L-7 and her adult daughter Lulu L-53 were traveling with J pod...I remember noticing that Canuck was not in the 'place' where she normally would be...and that was next to Ruffles J-1...

...I'd check on her location when I'd see her, and sometimes she was where she was 'supposed' to be, so I figured I must be off base in my thinking...

...when I had this early morning encounter with the whales at the park in July, I wondered what the whales knew that we humans didn't...I'd have to wait to find out...