She came to Georgia in late fall, 25 and pregnant. She's had the baby. Now, she's heading north to rejoin her extended family, swimming the whole way.

She's northern right whale No. 1243, sighted this winter off the coast of Georgia. The Eubalaena glacialis is one of 18 who gave birth this winter in the restless, green, calving grounds off Georgia and northeast Florida.

Georgia Department of Natural Resources (ENLARGE)

Spotters report that 18 right whales gave birth this winter in the calving grounds of the coast of Georgia and northeast Florida. An average of 12 calves are born every year. This photo was taken two years ago off the Georgia coast.

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Scientists say it was a good calving season for the endangered species, which numbers about 400.

Still, the "big picture" for the right whale remains uncertain, said scientist Monica Zani, who began charting whales' arrivals around Thanksgiving. The whale is listed as endangered on an international list of imperiled species.

An employee of the New England Aquarium, she participates in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's right whale emergency warning system. The federal program, created in 1996, uses spotters to look for right whales as they move along the Atlantic Seaboard. Whale-watchers provide real-time information that appears on shipboard computers and other communications equipment, alerting mariners to cetaceans in their paths.

Right whales are a study in movement. In the spring, they congregate in the waters off Cape Cod, feeding off tiny plankton called copepods. Summer, they wend north to Nova Scotia, where the waters are nearly silver arctic currents. Then, as the temperature begins to drop, they head back to the Massachusetts coast. Some don't stop there.

From late fall through winter, spotters focus their attention on whales heading 800 miles south -- some to give birth, others still young enough to follow the females. Other whales remain in the deeper, chilled waters of the North Atlantic.

The spotters following the southbound whales also report births, which are noted in a right whale inventory the New England Aquarium has been compiling for years. The aquarium, based in Boston, identifies the whales based on unique spot patterns along their heads.

Clay George, a Brunswick-based biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, is a participant in the watch. He's an unabashed whale fan.

"It's exciting to think our coast is so popular to a species that's endangered," he said.

The findings are encouraging, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a senior biologist at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. The nonprofit organization stresses worldwide cetacean conservation.

"We're hopeful" about the births, she said. "I guess the best you can say is, we're cautiously optimistic."

The number of whales is hardly skyrocketing. The whales, she noted, cross busy shipping lanes -- and never win in a collision with a tanker. Fishing nets also snare the slow-moving creatures, fatally injuring or drowning the whales.

Two years ago, she said, a tanker struck and killed one whale in southern waters, and another young whale drowned in nets.

Whales are slow breeders, too. A female bears a calf every three to five years. "The loss of a female can hurt the population," Zani said.

Calves get lost, too. According to early findings, two calves born this year have died. No one knows why.