We saw so many babies today!!
The flawless conditions are sticking around making it the best gray whale season I can remember.
On our 9am trip we barely went 15 minutes without wildlife the entire trip! Non stop action, starting with locating the very recognizable hooked dorsal fins of the pacific white sided dolphins! They were showing off today with the most agile and graceful dives porpoising around the Privateer. There was ~ 15 dolphins in the pod including a couple smaller calfs.
Shortly after we spotted a spout from a singular gray whale which we got a couple good looks at before exhibiting it avoidance behaviour. So we let that gentle giant be.
Though there were more whales in the area! Our best looks were at a pair of southbound adult grays who were fairly boat curious. We had a group of local whale enthusiasts celebrating a birthday on board and it felt like the grays were putting on a show just for them showing their flukes on nearly every dive. A small pod of ~ 50 common dolphins headed straight for the whales making for a quick multi -species interaction. A rare treat on the water.
We saw a couple more spouts on the horizon making at least 4 whales for the entire trip!
On our 12pm excursion, we headed south west and caught back up with the pacific white sided dolphins friends we encountered on the previous trip, once again getting good looks at their hunting behaviour and showing their calf’s how to hunt.
Changing direction towards the north we stumbled across a nursery pod of common dolphins! About ~100 in the pod and so many babies!! There was a good variety of ages ranging from itty bitty new football sized babies to sub adults.
Just south of La Jolla canyon we saw a huge spout, followed by a little spout, and were treated to a cow calf pair of grays whales. Taking only short 2 minute dives we got to follow them to the south getting great looks at both Mum and Baby for many breath cycles.
We were sad to say goodbye to them but we caught up briefly with yet ANOTHER cow calf pair!!
It’s so good to be seeing so many healthy babies, and we are still in the first half of the migration.
So if you want to see a baby whale now is a great time to come out!
-Naturalist Ruth
