New J Pod calf documented

J19 and J39 were in the lead, and they were socializing. Even though we did not have a drone in the air, we could tell these two were allo-kelping. The J35s were about a hundred yards to the east of J19 and J39. The rest of J pod was in one loosely spread-out group a couple of hundred yards behind the pair. Luckily, the J16s were in the little knot of whales close to the lead and we saw J42 with her calf soon after. The other J16s were near J42, but it was J58 who was closest to them as she was on the other side of J42 from the calf. The calf was behaving normally enough, if not quite popping out of the water conveniently yet. The calf, J64, is open-saddled on the right side. Members of the large, loose group moved around, and other young J pod whales were often near the new mother and calf. The general behavior seemed social as J pod traveled slowly southeast. J19 would eventually make it back to the main group. The next two youngest calves, J62 and J63, were very active and playful as they charged around. J53 and J59 were also often involved.

The little subgroups in J pod began spreading out, so once we were satisfied with our photos of J64, we moved around to make sure we got a photo of everyone in J pod. Once we moved on from the playful little ones, we saw J45 socializing with J51. A little to the northeast of these two was a small, tight group that included the J22s, J31s, and J27. J22 breached twice. To the east-northeast of this group, J44 and J46 were socializing together. J35 and J57 were also nearby. J26 and J49 were socializing together, and they also made a brief appearance among these whales. J47 was almost a quarter of a mile off to the north before he also came over and was socializing with J49 when we ended the encounter. J47 did several bellyflops before he began oozing over. We ended the encounter at 1630 with J47 and J49 about two miles east of Edith Point on Mayne Island.