It\u2019s that time again \u2014 time when San Diego residents don layers, pile into a boat and roll out to sea, all in the hope of catching a glimpse of one of the most spectacular migrations in the animal world. It\u2019s time to watch some whales. Birch Aquarium, partnering with San Diego Harbor Excursion, is one of several options residents have for whale-watching this year. Featuring narration by naturalists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, cruises happen twice daily and last 3\u00bd hours. Observers are guaranteed to see a whale, even if it doesn\u2019t happen the first time around. Staci Shaut, coordinator for the whale-watching program at Birch, said guests are issued a ticket for another cruise if they don\u2019t catch a good look at a whale. Gray whales are the main attraction, since it\u2019s their migration season, but observers can also expect to see dolphins, squid and sunfish. In past seasons, passengers have also been treated to other whale species. Fin whales, sperm whales, minkes, orcas and the largest of all \u2014 blue whales \u2014 have all been sighted recently. “Other whales that we have seen in past seasons live in these waters, but we don\u2019t always see them because they live farther out,” said Shaut. “The gray whales stay really close to shore, so that\u2019s why they\u2019re so great for whale watching.” Each year, gray whales undertake a roughly 12,000-mile, round-trip migration from the Bering Sea to the lagoons of Baja California. Between mid-December and mid-April, more than 20,000 whales make the trip as temperatures drop and ice covers much of their food sources up north. Females go to give birth to their calves in the lagoons and mature whales go to mate. For San Diegans, it\u2019s a chance to witness this phenomenon that comes around only once a year. Dylan Edwards, a former guide for Hike Bike Kayak Sports, which offers a kayak whale-watching tour in La Jolla, said that although it may seem like a risky endeavor, being on a kayak near the whales is quite a thrill. “Obviously in a kayak, you\u2019re not as fast as you are in a boat,” he said. “On other boats, you\u2019re out there with about 300 other people, but on a kayak, everything is peaceful and quiet. You just hear the spray of the whales. It\u2019s really intimate.” This year, like every year, scientists are not sure what to expect from the migrating giants. In recent years, some experts have observed a later start and end date for the gray whale migration. Wayne Perryman, of the Cetacean Health and Life History Program at La Jolla\u2019s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, said this pattern of later migrations started in the 1980s when the peak of the gray whales\u2019 journey was in early January. Now, he said, it is in late January. Although he and other scientists are reluctant to attribute this to any one cause, theories abound. One possible hypothesis is that as temperatures rise and arctic ice doesn\u2019t form until later in the season, gray whales may stay up north longer until their food gets scarce. “The two symptoms we\u2019re seeing is a later arrival here in Southern California and more calves being born farther north,” said Perryman. “Really, the whole arctic system is changing, and they\u2019re very adaptable animals, so there are going to be shifts [in their behavior]. What the cause is, it\u2019s tough to say.” BY BOAT \u2022 Birch Aquarium with Harbor Excursions: departing at 9:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. from Dec. 26 to April 3, (619) 234-4111, www.sdhe.com, $30 weekdays and $35 weekends (discounts for children, seniors and military) \u2022 Hornblower Cruises: departing at 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. from Dec. 11 to April 17, (619) 686-8715, www.hornblower.com, $34 weekdays and $39 weekends for adults, $17 weekdays and $19.50 weekends for children \u2022 Seaforth Sportfishing: departing twice daily from Dec. 26 to March 31, (619) 224-3383, www.seaforthlanding.com, $34 adults \u2022 H & M Landing: 3-hour cruises departing at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. from mid-December through mid-March, and 6-hour cruises to Coronado Islands departing at 10 a.m., (619) 222-1144, www.hmlanding.com, $25 adults, $20 juniors and $17.50 children ($50 for 6-hour cruises) BY AIR \u2022 Barnstorming Adventures: biplane, air combat and warbird flights, including whale watching; cost varies, (760) 930-0903 BY KAYAK \u2022 Hike Bike Kayak Sports: departing at 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. from December through March, (866) 425-2925, www.hikebikekayak.com, single-person kayak $60, tandem kayaks $55 per person BAJA TOURS \u2022 Birch Aquarium: excursions of four, five or six days following the whales down to their birthing grounds in the lagoons of Baja California, (800) 661-1325, www.andiamo-travel.com, $590-$1,095 \u2022 H&M Landing: trips of nine or 11 days, (619) 226-1729 or (619) 226-8224, cost varies<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s that time again \u2014 time when San Diego residents don layers, pile into a boat and roll out to sea, all in the hope of catching a glimpse of one of the most spectacular migrations in the animal world. It\u2019s time to watch some whales. Birch Aquarium, partnering with San Diego Harbor Excursion, is […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":282009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11556","_seopress_titles_title":"Gray whales make their yearly appearance","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11556,11547,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-downtown-news","category-features","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}