[CINC] Island Explorer Sunday 7/28/2013

[Paul Petrich]

Great report Kevin! 
 To all Ocean People as well. It is interesting to see how this report is so similar to the first accounts some 10+ years ago of the Humpbacks in our channel first starting inquisitive interaction with people on watch boats! They came first in numbers profitable to watch, right?    Paul
On Jul 28, 2013, at 10:43 PM, Kevin Bailey wrote:

> 4 Blue Whales  - 1 circled the boat (like a humpback mugging) – came up at bow and then on all four sides of the boat checkin’ us out before it swam a little farther away;  for all those that say “I came to see a Blue Whale”, they were ecstatic; less than a handful of folks had ever seen a Blue Whale and many had never seen any whale, but on the other extreme a couple people travel the world (from CO) in search of wildlife and got a few things checked off their bucket list today (including the Blue Whale box)
> Bait fish / Krill could be seen between 100-200 feet under boat which kept the Blues with us for a good long time
> 3 Humpback Whales
> 2500+ commons in mini pods to small pods of several hundred with lots of young ones and scattered throughout the day
> 20 Risso’s with 4 newbies that looked like they were born this morning
> 8 Elegant terns above the 1st feeding frenzy
> 1000’s of Brandts Cormorants along SCI
> 1 juvenile Bald Eagle flying above SCI at the west end
> 1 adult Bald eagle with blue tag (could not see the number) perched on a branch ½ way down the hill
> A deep ride into Painted Cave with lots of Pigeon Guillemots
> Sea Lions at entrance to the cave and then in several spots along SCI – 1 with a tag that Steve from IPCO thinks was released a couple weeks ago and looked to be doing just fine sunning itself on the rocks
> 10 min from home a tight feeding frenzy with a humpback, dolphins, sea lions, diving elegant terns, plunging pelicans, pink footed shearwaters, sooty shearwaters, red necked phalaropes, cormorants, various gulls; outside the tight feeding frenzy circle the birds were everything for maybe a mile.
> Lots of excited people from Austria, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Italy, CO, FL, IA, ND, NV, MA, OR, PA, UT, and several from LA area
> Coming into the Ventura Harbor the jetty was covered in birds again (it was not as we were leaving this morning – must have been out fishing). What was interesting is that the top 1/3 of the rocks had pelicans (the biggest bird) and then in the middle of the rocks (from the top to sea) were cormorants (medium sized birds) and then the bottom layer closest to the ocean were terns (the smallest of the 3 birds). Interesting how they had their “pecking order” of who gets to sit where on the rocks.
>  
> Excited to see my 1st Blue Whale of the season, (especially so close)
> Kevin Bailey
>  
>  
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