MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: February 27, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies:

Thursday, February 28, 2019

February 27, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies:

Todays dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Sandra B who sent an amazing footage of a breaching whale on the east side and photos from my brief visit to Makai Pier.

I received an email with an incredible link to video of a whales breaching on the east side near Rabbit Island. I think it might have been taken yesterday but not sure. I want to say thank you to Sandra for giving me permission to post and thank you to Melody for pointing her to the blog :-).

I went out to view Rabbit Island this afternoon and let's just say I made it in enough time to see five critters and then get out of there. The weather changed very quickly, conditions were cold, and windy and that was before the skies darkened and it rained. Picture quality isn't that great but I will go out on a limb and say the solo critter to the right of the 3BS is RK37 by seeing a natural bleach on her side, female belly and tags.
The group of four were just right of the first blue sign and hard to tell. One larger seal adult, unknown as it did not change position. Little greenish youngen is possible Hali'a RK38. The other two appeared to have male bellies and the one furthest right looked to have a NB on rear flipper. Could not see NB on front flipper so not sure if it was Kea.
Let's just say I can for sure say there were five seals on Rabbit Island and the wind, light and rain made it miserable.

As far as Team Billand well, I don't know if it's a record but THEY did have a great seal sighting day with a total of ten for the day. (hmmm that's better than most seal count numbers if you include the 5 on Rabbit Island).
At 6:50 AM Team Billand arrived to a westside location and found Kawena RH36 and next to her was R3CU. He was very attentive to Kawena and at times he tried to mount her, thankfully things settle and they rested. Next to come up behind the two of them was Kekoa Alii RK72.

There were two more seals that came in fast fighting and then they each landed by Kawena and R3CU. Kaale RH32 went to the right of Kawena and R3CU did not react. Team Billand ID'd the other seal as RW02 PvKauai, which makes seal #5.
No sooner said than done there was RIP RR70, seal #6.

After six critters settled in Team Billand took the opportunity to head over to plains to check to see if there were any visitors. They arrived at 9:40 and spotted Buster V08 resting comfortably in a marked off zone by the life guards. Buster was resting comfortably looking good and volunteer arrived at 10 am so Team Billand headed back to the west side.

When they returned to the site they were shocked to see eight critters there on the rocks. They made careful observations and were able to ID Kolohe RW22, and Kalani RN14 were the new arrivals. The waves started getting really big and at one point RIP was twirled around, he fought back like a salmon going upstream and landed to the right alone away from the other seals.
Kawena remained alone to the left. R3CU, RK72, RH32, RW22, RN14, RW02 and RR70. Hmmmm Kawena is one brave little girl or she just a hussy.

A huge set of waves came in and washed everyone off the rocks, all the boys were fighting with each

other then they all stopped. Where's Kawena, she took off when she had the chance, and one by one the boys took off. The only ones that stay were Kekoa, Kolohe and RIP.

Just before 3 pm Team Billand was heading home and made one last stop. They had to take a good look and sure enough they could see RL42 Leia. She was sleeping in between rocks, which kept her very well hidden, It was raining and the rocks were slippery so they did the best they could from the distance for an ID. She is looking healthy and chunky.

Video of Whales Breaching east side