It’s gray-whale season in Puget Sound – and there may be one in our area. Kevin sent this report Saturday night:

My wife and I and several others spotted a whale just off of the shore at Lincoln Park around 8:20 pm this evening. It was in the shallow water between the park and the ferry landing and eventually went back out to the sound near Blake Island. We aren’t sure what type of whale it was, but it looked like a gray whale and was on the smaller side. Have there been any other reports of this? We were unable to get a picture.

First place we checked was the Orca Network Facebook page, where sure enough, one person had posted “I live in SW Seattle. Near Seola beach. My neighbors have seen an Orca possibly in trouble, close to shore, with irregular breathing,” and then amended, ” It turns out it may have been a gray whale, according to another neighbor. Last seen heading north towards the Fauntleroy Ferry.” No further reports so far, but again, this is the season in which a few grays are spotted in Puget Sound; it was mid-April of last year when a gray whale stranded and died in West Seattle’s Arroyos neighborhood, and that was about two weeks after a gray whale spent the day swimming close to West Seattle’s shore. (If you see a marine mammal in distress, there’s a hotline: 800-853-1964.)

ADDED 10:20 AM: Stacey shares this photo from a week ago – no way to tell if it was the same whale, but if you haven’t seen one before, that gives you an idea of what a sighting might look like:

She explains, “We saw a gray whale off of 30th Ave SW in Shorewood last Sunday. It stayed around for a while going back and forth.”