Whale Watching Report

A common loon gives us a fly-by.

We started out today with a gray whale swimming in the shallows of the river delta just outside Jetty Island. He was showing us his tail flukes and pectoral fins as he swam sideways to feed. We watched this whale for about half an hour then we cruised north to look for another whale that captain Carl had seen earlier. We couldn't find that whale so we headed back to look at our first whale again but he picked up another whale buddy or two by the time we got there. One of these whales ended up being #49, Patch, and we couldn't tell for sure if he was joined by two other whales or just one. In any event Patch gave us the best tail fluke views as he raised his tail high in the air on a couple of different occasions for us. At one point, Patch, and one other gray whale swam right over to us giving our passengers great close-up views. Other wildlife that we spotted today included California sea lions, Harbor seals, common loons, brant, surf scoters, bald eagles, osprey, double crested cormorants, western grebes, and a red-necked grebe. Naturalist Bart Rulon