Overcast with occasional showers.
I went out to Herring Cove this evening hoping to catch the whale which has been frequenting there.
I watched for a few minutes, but didn’t see the whale. I had headed back to town when I got a text from RC (who I had spoken with briefly while watching). He let me know the whale had come into the cove. Fortunately, I had just pulled over at the big pullout to get a photo of Cross Mountain when I got the text.
I watched the whale do several loops around the cove. I could see where it was going to come up by a spiral of bubbles. Just before its open mouth broke the surface, one of its flukes typically emerged while slicing through the water.
I mentioned to RC that it would be nice to see the tail flukes to try and get an identification on the whale. Moments later, the whale showed its tail on a dive. It was the only time I saw its flukes the whole time I watched.
Fortunately, the photos I got were sufficient to identify the whale (with help from Lauren Wild and HappyWhale). I was able to review the public observations on HappyWhale and see almost all of the observations since 2018 were from summer around Sitka. A pair of early observations from 2005 were made when it was observed as a calf. At first I wondered if it was even the same whale, because the tail had much more white on it than I observed. Lauren checked and confirmed that it was the same whale (previously researchers had checked and noted the notches on the trailing edge of the tail matched). Apparently tail pattern can change quite a bit between juvenile and adult years.
I was curious about the large gap in the record, but figured it’s probably an artifact of when HappyWhale came on-line and starting gathering and sharing sightings made by the public.
Biting flies were out and mildly annoying while I was watching from the shore.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
