Birds Watching Whales

Last night was one of those peaceful, beautiful, early evening encounters with the whales. In contrast to the dozens of boats and crowds of people watching the whales from Lime Kiln State Park earlier in the afternoon, it was a quiet shoreline with calm waters so you could hear the whales' every breath. I noticed a lot of sea gulls flying around while I was taking pictures of the whales, but only realized after I got home how comical they made some of the photos. They were just begging to have captions.

Don't hit me with your spray! One gull narrowly avoids the spout of Riptide (J30), which on such a calm night plumed up to 20 feet in the air.

Watching me, watching you: a whale spyhops while a sea gull looks down from above.

The race is on: who's faster, an orca or a gull?

Within 100 yards: doesn't this gull know his little boat, complete with a mast, has to stay at least 100 yards away from the whales?

Whoops, not a log: This gull swooped down right over Shachi (J19), Eclipse (J41), and Suttles (J40), almost as if it was mistaking them for a log to land on.

Finally, just before the evening's end, was the "payoff" for hours of watching and waiting - a close pass by young male Mike (J26), his mom Slick (J16), and Slick's youngest calf J42, which just turned 1 year old and will be named this month through The Whale Museum.