The calves don’t have a monopoly on fun. Here, mom shows the world a big smile. She and her calf are right in front of us and nursing. The calf then hammed it up with several head shots for our catalog, and all displaying various shades of milk. This was light-hearted for a brief moment because we were well-aware that not far up the Channel, beyond Counter Point was a huge oil slick created by the leaking pipeline.

This was our only Gray-whale sighting on this wind shortened day. When we closed the survey, we hung around to see if more were passing. It was too windy to survey, but we are pretty confident no other gray whales passed by today.

About two-and-a-half miles south of the Point, a Humpback breached a few times and crashed into the choppy sea. The whale the slapped its fluke on the surface many times and then used its pectoral fun to bang a hole in the water. We thought of is as a display of anger for the spill. Maybe so ...

Researchers with student helpers were all over the Coal Oil Point area today. The tide was very low early in the morning and lots of baseline documentation was occurring before the oil, driven by the wind could cover the intertidal area.

When we left for the day, the oil was not yet in sight.

For updates, check this link to Reuters.

Gray whales northbound (all) 2 | Calves 1 — 2015 Count 1414 | 244

Hours 5:00