Dolphins and other sea mammals often mix playfully with migrating gray whales.
Alisa Schulman-Janiger

The migration past southern California is in the crossover period, still switching from mainly a southbound to mainly a northbound migration phase. For example, Feb. 24 and 25 brought mostly southbound grays, while Feb. 26 brought mostly northbound grays.

A look at February's data from the Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project at Los Angeles may make you wonder: When was the turnaround date? Why are numbers so low? Project Director Alisa Schulman-Janiger explains:

"It is important to note that over the past few weeks we have had lots of fog, wind, and rain — much more than we experienced last season. This weather has made it difficult or even impossible to count whales, so an exact turnaround date will be hard to pin down. This season our turnaround date is more than a week later than last year's date of Feb. 17, which now makes this our second latest migration phase turnaround in 34 seasons. We usually experience a 'gap' period, with few whales going in either direction in mid-February. We have seen 81 northbound grays during our official southbound migration — a substantial migration overlap — like we saw during the past several seasons. It is much more difficult to track whales when we have these overlapping phases. A most interesting season!"

At Goleta, CA, volunteers at Gray Whales Count just began their 13th annual survey of the northbound migration of Gray Whales through the nearshore of the Santa Barbara Channel. With weather shut downs costing many hours of counting, they tallied just 15 northbound Gray whales in the first six days this year compared to last year's 63. "Not a great start," said Director Michael H. Smith, "but it will be an interesting year."

Yes, it will!