Porpoises!

H and I went out for a splendid row on calm water this morning -I decided to bring the camera with the newly repaired lens (70-200)— which was good to have as we saw  seals, jelly fish, heron, eagle,  and pigeon gillemonts , but the most unusual were these harbor porpoises so they have to be the blip.   They are hard to see, unlike the more showy Dall porpoises in big groups that love to ride that bow wake on a boat, (these shy away from boats, are often alone or in small groups.)  We saw 4 not far from our boat (that’s Saltspring Island in the back, with a crab boat in front) ) but I could only manage 3 in one photo.  It looks like a slow forward roll when they rise to breathe.  When feeding, they rise at 10-20 second intervals about 4 times and then dive for 2 to 6 minutes….They have a white belly and of course when we see a creature like this we think Orca,  but these are small and hard to glimpse so I was delighted to see them at all!  I’ll catch those seals another day....