11-15-2022 What? Whales on the LK Hydrophones!

 

11-5-22 A singing HB & Catching up on SRKWs.

Thanks to this humpback...well, it's good to catch up for the last month or more!

Late September J Pod was coming down from the north...

...coming into view...approaching the lighthouse.

Tahlequah J-35 and Phoenix J-57

And whoever goes down island often comes back up the next day.  

They did!  Tahlequah, again.

Took a while to figure out this was Se-Yi-Chn J-45. 

He was catching up to Notch J-47.

...Now what are they doing here?  A couple Transients on a different day...beginning of October.

...Ah...a couple days later J Pod was coming back down island.

...always pretty to watch the birds.

...looks like the birds like watching the whales too.

...mom and baby, J-59...

...couple days later up they came...

...two big boys and both look very different...

...all this up island and down island...a snack is needed!

...and down island they came again...  Shachi J-19 in the lead and in the cove north of the lighthouse too

...Echo J-42

...Eclipse J-41 and Crescent J-58

...Cookie J-38 and J-59... (Oreo J-22 was there too)

...mom, Hy'Shqa in front of J-59 and  Suttles J-40 - of course

...Blackberry J-27, about to go out of view due to the shoreline...oh, well, that's normal...but wait...!

...and the luckiest shot of the month...my camera could have easily focused on that shoreline...how I got so lucky,  oh, well.. Whew!

The tip of Blackberry's dorsal fin is on the right..

Tsuchi J-31 and Tofino J-56 in front of him.

That was early October.

Since then, J Pod has been in Puget sound a lot our out to sea a lot.

To see the SRKWs as much as we have this year brings some hope.

One day of finding salmon at a time.

They need it every day of the year.

9-25-2022 Humpbacks Passing the Lighthouse

This was a surprise!   

Not one, but two Humpbacks this afternoon. Looked like a mother/calf pair.  Of course, middle of the day with lots of sun glare.  But someone saw a blow and so we all watched & waited. 

And here's what we got!  Thank you to the person who spotted them. Thank you to the two Humpbacks who got quite active when they passed by the lighthouse!

September 18 & 19 - Lots Going On These Last Two Days

The SRKWs had gone back out to sea.

We've been glad they have been gone most of the time because of the boat that sank.  

Sept 18

Meanwhile there have been Transients in various places. There are two brothers, who seem to like to not do what the humans would like them to do and that is avoid the spill area where the boat went down.

And they did it again. It was in the afternoon; J Pod was in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and inbound...oh, no!  Some Transient orcas showed up on TWM's web cam...they kept coming north, so I went to County Park to see what they would do...this image is of the crane that lifted the boat up to the surface...but there was much more to do.

...what would those two brothers do? 

...just what they have done before...go on the inside of Low Island, which is just off County Park...and on the shore side of the crane/barge and sunken boat.

...word was that J Pod was pretty much in the same place as they were about 5 hours before...

...then there was word that they might have come to Haro Strait after dark, but by the next morning 9-19 they were seen heading west at about the same place they had been the day before.

...well, they know what they are doing...

...my take on it is that maybe they had come in and even though they weren't detected over the hydrophones, that just maybe (a little levity here) they sent a 'scout' up island to check out the sunken ship situation (ha-ha).

(Note: we've seen the whales do this in the past only it was more about looking for fish than looking for the status of a sunken boat.)

(Levity continued...)  Granny J-2 must have taught Shachi J-19 well.

'When in doubt, head out!'

Sept 19

The sunken ship had been lifted to the surface but was still in the water. Official word came that they would be moving everything to shallower water and out of the travel path of the orcas.  oohhh..

Success! And what an awesome event to watch...the patience, the coordination of so many.  Thank you USCG, Dept of Ecology, deterrent team and so many others.  Here are a few images from what I saw today.

The cable coming down toward the left side of this image is what the sunken boat is attached to. It wasn't as easy to see it as it was yesterday because it was on the far side. They were heading into Open Bay.

Three Dept of Ecology boats. the two closest each have one end of the boom that is moving a good distance behind the crane.  The farthest boat appears to be a support Dept of Ecology boat.  

 

This image shows the extent of the boom.  I would assume if there was a leakage from the rescued boat the boom was there and ready.

I had seen some smaller boats, possibly DFO and/or WDFW, that were deterring speeding boats away from any interference in this operation.  

The last boat I saw was the US Coast Guard ship.

This may be 'all in a day's work' for all who are working on these boats/ships. 

It is something that not everyone gets to witness.

Thank you, one and all for your service.

Sept 8 - Late Afternoon with J & K pods

 This is part 2 of Sept 8.  See prior post for part 1.