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copyright 2000

I was down to Laguna Ojo de Liebre again beginning February 14th. We saw hundreds of whales, a few up really close. You know that you are having a close encounter when everyone on the boat is suddenly holding their breath. One very large mother and her youngster approached us and stayed just out of reach for at least five minutes. We could look the baby in the eye and there was no doubt that he was checking us out as well.

This big baby kept hurling himself out of the water time after time. He just couldn’t get enough of that high flying.

Our group was fortunate to be able to visit both the inner and the outer lagoon areas of Laguna Ojo de Liebre. The inside has more mother/baby pairs. The most common activity there is the baby feeding. The photo below characterizes this activity. The mother lays on her side and the baby feeds below the surface of the water. Frequent splashing of the baby’s tail occurs.

The outside is where most, but not all, of the mating and reproductive activities take place. We saw dozens of mating pairs and trios. This activity is difficult to recognize unless you know what you are actually seeing. Again, much of the activity takes place below the water line. We usually are attracted by the splashing and rolling in the distance.

President’s Day weekend is now the busiest weekend of the year at Guerrero Negro. Most of the motels fill up as do the RV parks. The good restaurants were all very crowded. All of the licensed whale watching boats were on the water and full.

The official census of whales in the lagoons was 1,325 whales as of February 15th. The count is still climbing. Of interest is the whale count from the Palos Verdes whale census station. The current count is 75 northward gray whales and 450 southbound whales. And yes there are still some southbound whales.

That’s all for now.

Keith (baja) Jones