A successful day on the water with Southern Residents

On the morning of November 4th, we started the day with reports of J-Pod vocalizations over the Orcasound Port Townsend hydrophone. While Southern Residents' visits to Puget Sound in September and October are more variable, November has been more consistent, and needless to say, it was exciting to have them heading into our core study area just a few days into the month!

We headed out with our partners from the Center for Whale Research and caught up with the whales just south of Bush Point. They weren't just moving fast: they were charging south. In the lead were the J19s, J35s, and J46, which gave us an opportunity to check in with the youngest member of the group, newborn J65 who was catching some air as the group porpoised by. The other picture shows J19 Shachi.

We were able to get in a couple of full gear deployments with the hydrophone array and drone, and even better, the whales were vocalizing. Even though the field day was cut short due to increasing winds, this gave us some workable test data to confirm everything was operational. It was a successful day on the water with Southern Residents, we hope the first of many!