Another successful morning on the water with J-Pod

On November 7 we had another successful morning on the water with J-Pod while working on our collaborative field project with the Center for Whale Research. The whales were spread out and foraging, so we heard lots of echolocation over the hydrophones along with sporadic calls. The goal of this research is to pair these localized hydrophone recordings with drone observations of orca behavior to gain insights into their communication system. Ultimately, this will inform passive acoustic monitoring efforts to help identify important foraging areas in places where visual observation of the endangered Southern Residents is more difficult.

J-Pod was spread out such that we only saw about a quarter of the pod throughout the course of our encounter while traveling with them up the east side of the channel past Edmonds. Here are a few photos from the day, including J38 Cookie under Tahoma (Mt. Rainier). The other images are pictures of J35 Tahlequah, J57 Phoenix, and young calf J65, who has seemingly learned how to spyhop! We've seen regular spyhops from him this week as he practices this behavior.

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