Thursday, November 2nd
...October 30th...in my last post J Pod calls had been on the Lime Kiln hydrophones very, very briefly...that was it...
...October 31st...they were evidently not seen anywhere...
...November 1st...they were heard over the Port Townsend hydrophones late in the afternoon...and nothing after that...
...November 2nd...today...stormy day...nothing on the Port Townsend or the Lime Kiln hydrophones...AND THEN...4:32pm, J Pod calls 'burst' over the Lime Kiln hydrophones! Wow! What?! They were in Haro Strait...but where...
...off at a run to Lime Kiln to see if I could find them...
...as I was listening to their calls, I heard some K Pod 'kitten' sounding call...I also heard a few of the L Pod 'up-tick' call (S19)...and of course J Pod calls...
...The L54 group makes the 'kitten' call too, but these calls continued on for so long, that it seemed that some K Pod whales were present...
...difficult to know which part of the 2 1/2 hours of recording to share, but here's a bit of what went on...
..dilemma - rough seas and whales miles from shore!
...many want to know who was there...well, with that situation it is impossible to tell who was present, but we do know that some J Pod whales were present, think some K Pod whales were present and know that some L Pod whales were present...from the calls, the K Pod 'kitten call' (S16) was quite dominant, J Pod was as well...and there were many times throughout with echolocation clicks...L Pod signature call (Up-tick) was not as dominant, but I did hear some L Pod calls that we don't hear all the time. Those echolocation clicks - foraging!
...fast forward to November 4, (because I am actually writing this on 11/4) the L54s showed up today coming down Waldron Island (thank you San Juan Safaris for that!)...which adds another piece to the puzzle...were they here on the 2nd or were they somewhere else on that day?! If they were here and they were part of the participants in that spectacular audio encounter, did the others go north as well? If they did it seems they were very quiet when they did...
So it's a mystery and might just remain that way...doesn't matter, we need to focus on the salmon for these whales and repairing this ecosystem too, so these whales will be able to survive.
...why are the whales here now?...well, it seems that chum salmon are still coming in...on November 1st there was a fishing seiner on the west side. I only saw the one and it was setting its net. There could have been more down island out of my view, but I don't know. I also learned from Simon of Ocean Ecoventures that there were fishing seiners up near Samsun Narrows, where evidently chum salmon are as well, why else might seiners be there...that might explain why J Pod went up Trincomali Channel on Oct 24th...it's has not been a 'normal' route for them...
...in addition, in the last few days the birds, bait fish, and seals have been quite active, and next in line should be salmon coming through, though they are not easy to spot...
...HOWEVER...the whales seemed to be doing lots of foraging...lots of echolocation clicks over the Lime Kiln hydrophones over that long, spectacular listening session...
...interested in banning open net pens in Washington State?...upper left column on this blog is a link to a petition...it's not my petition...but I signed and think it would be a good thing to allow the Salish Sea to be free of open net pens of farmed Atlantic salmon...just trying to help the author of the petition get those signatures to take to the State.
...
Tuesday, October 30th
...ever since the first
ever recording of a singing male humpback back in October 2013,
there is at least one that is heard over either the Lime Kiln or the
Orca Sound hydrophones in October and/or November...
October 29...2:08a.m. what sounded like a male singing humpback...first one of this season to be heard over the hydrophones...
...at about 5:45 a.m. it was singing again, but you could tell it was farther away...when it got to be daylight there were reports of five or so humpbacks south of the lighthouse...two of them came up island...and then not long after two came up island, in a bit closer, but we couldn't figure out if it was the same two, who had made a wide circle, or two others...
...J Pod was still up north and starting to come back down...
October 30...
...J Pod was reported to be out by Race Rocks...it appears they had come down from the north quietly in the night - one person did hear some faint whistles the night of the 29th...it likely was them coming down...and by mid-afternoon I learned the were facing east (inbound) but not going anywhere...
...so when at 10:20pm I heard one single J Pod call over the Lime Kiln hydrophones - wow! - maybe they are coming back in...
...that call was clear but faint...then over the next hour there were a few more, only two of which were clear...but that was it...too much ship noise...I figured the whales might be at the east end of Constance Bank, but that is just a guess...8 seconds of 3 faint calls - that's all!
...it's a wait and watch/listen for the whales...
AND
...it's a time for action to recover the wild stocks of salmon...
It is urgent that there be enough salmon for the SRKWs. It is their ocean and their waters and the humans have done more destruction than stewardship of these waters. And it is now time for that to change by way of actions of restoration.
Saturday, October 28th
...ha-ha-ha...yes, I rarely go off island and only if I absolutely must...one time I left the island only 1 time over a 7 year period!
...October 24th - this time I had to go off due to a transmission issue with my car...made the ferry reservation - 5:45a.m. which meant I needed to be there by 5:00a.m.
...I was worried about not waking up to the alarms (yes, multiple) I had set...
...BUT I didn't need to worry because the whales woke me up a little bit before 2 a.m.!
...I heard calls for only 2 minutes...several of what sounded like K Pod calls, one Onyx call, and one L Pod up-tick call...but the absence of J Pod calls had me curious...for the next 2 & 1/2 hours I listened and not a vocalization of any kind...
...I had to leave for the ferry...
...I sent to the Center of Whale Research what I had heard and out the door I went...
...off island...waiting...
...for the 2:40 ferry to come back to the island...I learn that the L54 group - ah-ha! - those were the ones making the K calls - yep, they have a history of doing that...anyway, the L54s had been a good ways north, behind J Pod...they had flipped and were coming back down...
...oh, no!...would I make it to the west side before them!
...on the ferry...I find out the L54s are still far north...but I went to County Park to just sit, after a stressful day...no whales just peaceful...
...that evening I looked at what I had recorded while I was off island and wouldn't you know, 20 minutes after I had left the house for the ferry, the whale began vocalizing - for the next 2 1/2 hours!...and there were the J pod calls...and at the end of them were the L54 group (based on what I was hearing)...so I figured that what I heard at 2:00 am. was them coming across from Discovery...and the 2 1/2 hours of calls they were coming up the west side.
...the next day I learn the L54s were the last to go north and they were 'outside the door' foraging - geesh!...now I know why I don't like to go off island, the whales must know HA!
...well, it was at 5:45 a.m. on the 25th that the L54 group made it to the Lime Kiln hydrophone range...but it was dark, so, so much for that!
...that afternoon a whale watch boat saw the L54 group off the southern part of the island...
...that night at about 11pm a friend heard a few blows, but couldn't be sure if it was orcas or not...hummmm.
...nothing...nothing...nothing...
...then late in the day on Oct 27th, a Canadian whale watch company, way north, somewhere near the Campbell River 'ran into' J Pod (and maybe the L54s?) on their way home. So sweet!!
I haven't seen any of the SRKWs in many days...one of the most fun things I saw from these days of wandering around - on island - is this...
Monday, October 23rd
...during this year, from time to time, I have posted about the waters on the west side of San Juan Island and how something is wrong, to me anyway. I've noticed it all year. Changes would occur when salmon came through. And since that was few and far between, it was pretty bleak on the west side - a stretch from about Hannah Heights to the north part of Andrews Bay. I didn't do it all summer but most of it. When the SRKWs came in, most of the time, ahead of them there were some changes, but not like in years past.
And with the recent Chum salmon run there was a huge difference in other marine life - because one of the missing links - salmon - a lot!! - were passing through!
So this morning when I noticed some bait fish and gulls I went and looked outside.
Here's a short video. It's on Vimeo. Just click on the link
Sunday, October 15, 2017
...a sunshiny morning, no clouds for the day...by noon there were whales coming up island!
...what a surprise and it was J Pod too!...and the L54s and Nyssa L-84 and Wave Walker L-88 had come in with J Pod and Onyx L-87. Now that is extra special...
..Nyssa was way far offshore when I was first taking pictures...I had no idea it was him until I looked at my images later!
...a while later he was foraging in one direction while Mike J-26 was going in the opposite direction...
...there were salmon and that's why the whales were here today...perhaps again tomorrow but that's 'salmon dependent'...
...it was about 12:30 when they were off Lime Kiln...spread way out - inshore and up to a couple miles offshore...they were spread from the north to the south...eventually the last of the whales passed by at about 1:30...
...whale watching boats were way north but they weren't going too far...
...
...there was a disturbance to the encounter...it was a boat that was coming down island very fast and it wasn't paying attention. In the State of Washington, just in the last couple months they passed a law about Distracted Driving...how about making a law against Distracted Boaters. This is about the closest I ever seen...
...it took the boater a few minutes to slow down, well, actually he stopped and watched the whales...at one point I was feeling that people, including me, on shore shouldn't have motioned the driver the slow down, but you can't just sit there and watch a potential problem happen or do you?
...when he decided to leave he started up and went 'at speed' - sort of like peeling out of a parking lot...looks like there needs to be some education about noise pollution too...
...back to enjoying the whales as they continued down island...
...when I last saw the whales they were a good way down island and so were the purse seiners...wonder where they will be in the morning...same place?
...if you saw Southern Residents today, consider it very fortunate...the whales need salmon filled days more than just once in a while...
