DANA POINT, CA – A baby gray whale heading south with its mother was spotted swimming alongside dolphins and sea lions off the Southern California coast.
Crew members on a whale-watching boat recorded video of the pair in about 100 feet (30 meters) of water near Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point on Tuesday.
Capt. Frank Brennan aboard Dana Wharf’s Ocean Adventure estimated that the calf was just a day or so old.
“You could still see the fetal folds on it behind the blowhole,” he said of the young whale.
Brennan told the Orange County Register he followed the pair as white-sided dolphins stopped feeding to check the whales out. The dolphins and whales were then joined by a group of sea lions.
The whales are migrating to the lagoons of Baja, Mexico.