New Whales

 My whale nerdom has intensified over the years, and now with the new boat, the opportunities have increased to venture out and look for them.  This year has introduced us to some new whales as well as visiting with some that we have known for years.

We named this whale Anan because we encountered it near Anan Creek on our way to spend the day at the Anan Wildlife Observatory.  There were 2 large whales and one smaller whale travelling together but this was the only good tail shot I got.  The smaller whale did a lot of breaching and seemed to be having a good time and enjoying life and the sunny day.

We later saw Anan with maybe the same two whales in September quite a long way from where we first saw them in July.

The top photo is of a new whale to us named Falco.  The whale Falco was with is a whale already known to us named Frisbee.

This is Ghost.  Ghost is maybe my favorite of "our" whales and is one of the first that I photographed and documented.  Ghost is very photogenic and always dives with tail high in the air giving lots of opportunities for pictures.  

Another already known whale named Halo that we recently saw with Ghost.

One more already known whale named Chuck that we also recently saw with Ghost, Halo, Frisbee, and a whale that I thought was new for us but upon investigating some old photos, we first saw in 2019.  That whale wasn't named yet so we named it Kash.

This is Kash.  Looking through some old photos, I realized that I had pictures of this whale from August of 2019 in a group of whales consisting of Ghost, Chuck, Razorback, and Stihl.  I find it very interesting that many of these whales are feeding and travelling together year after year.  I'd love to know why.  Are they related?  Friends?  Coincidence?  Another interesting fact is that most of the whales we see here around Wrangell and Southeast Alaska in general spend their winters in Hawaii particularly off of the west coast of Maui near Lahaina in the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.  Summers in Southeast Alaska and winters in Hawaii sounds like an idyllic existence in my modern human mind although the whales have many dangers, obstacles, and effort to navigate for that lifestyle.  Many years ago now, one of our local shrimp fishermen lost several of his shrimp pots while they were set out to catch shrimp.  He had no idea what had happened to them and as losing gear is sometimes a result of commercial fishing, he just continued on with his season.  Several months later he was contacted by people in Hawaii who had disentangled a humpback from his missing shrimp gear!!  The whale had swam all the way from the Wrangell, Alaska vicinity to Hawaii while dragging the buoys, lines, and pots!  Fortunately, there are many whale lovers like myself who have been trained and volunteer to disentangle whales when they are found in need of assistance and there is a large community of whale disentanglers in Hawaii as well as a smaller group here in SE AK.  I travelled to Sitka, AK a few years ago to be trained in the techniques and strategies for whale disentanglement but fortunately have not had a chance to help.

This was a brand new whale for us and another photogenic one.  We named it Snow.

These aren't new whales but since I mentioned them in this post I figured I would include their pictures.  The top whale is Razorback and the bottom is Stihl.

How about some whale talk?  My inexpensive hydrophone and even more inexpensive speaker for it sure make a whale encounter even more incredible.

This next video is from this past April, according to the time stamp (I thought it was last winter), and is a short one that has two of my favorite sounds:  the breathing of a whale and Andrea's laugh.  This was a small humpback that was hanging out near town for several days and took advantage of the natural fish corral that the harbor makes to get a few meals of fish schooled up there.  Just two days ago I saw a small humpback very near to town for most of the day.  Maybe it is the same one?  I don't have photos of it and have not seen its tail yet but hope to soon.

The humpbacks are typically in our area well into November and even December before they begin the journey to Hawaii so I hope to have more encounters before 2021 ends!