Our long
dry spell of no whale sightings broke this morning with a call from Julie
Albert of the Marine Resources Council’s Right Whale Hotline around 8:15 AM
with a report of whales in Ormond
Beach. It was quite a catch, considering the fog
blanketing the coast! Team 4 deployed in several locations. It was an exercise
in patience and persistence…the visibility was often less than ¼ mile, but it
paid off. First, Elaine and John Kelley spotted what proved to be mother and
calf right whales at SR 44, Grenada
Blvd., Ormond Beach,
and then Larry Bell spotted them from Amsden
Road, where the response team of Jim and Joy
joined them to take photos.
The pair
is provisionally identified as Whale #2503, Boomerang, with her 3rd
calf.On 4 December 2005, we photographed Boomerang with her
first calf as they swam past Marineland and into history; this is the whale
that took her calf all the way to Corpus
Christi, Texas in
January. Boomerang returned to the SE US in 2009
with calf #2, but we did not see her south of St. Augustine Inlet.
The two
swam north a short way, then turned south, changing directions several times,
before swimming slowly south past Grenada Blvd, close in, for good photos in
the best visibility of the day. We left them shortly after 3 PM, about 2 miles
south of Grenada Blvd.
But wait,
the day got better! Julie from MRC called again, at 1:15 PM, with another
reported sighting, this time from Ocean Trace in St. Augustine. We were too far away to
respond, so she notified our colleagues with the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission and they responded by land and sea. This, too, was a
mother and calf pair, Whale #2040, Naevus, whom we had not seen south of the
St. Augustine Inlet prior to this sighting. Now, this is the way to end a dry
spell!
