tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39707778784988446542024-03-13T14:08:46.540-07:00Orca WatcherPhotos and musings related to wildlife watching in the San Juan IslandsMonikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.comBlogger1031125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-12360426036134504372020-11-02T15:05:00.007-08:002020-11-02T15:11:49.524-08:00Day of the Dead ~ 11th Annual Tribute<p style="text-align: justify;">Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a time every year I take a
moment to remember the Southern Resident killer whales we've lost over
the previous 12 months. You can find all my previous Day of the Dead tributes
<a href="http://www.orcawatcher.com/search/label/day%20of%20the%20dead" target="_blank">here</a>. I believe it's so important to remember their stories, as they all, both
in life and in death, fuel our fight for a brighter future for this
unique population of whales.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> <b>L41 Mega</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Every loss is sad, but some hit me harder than others, and L41 was one of those harder ones. I think it's in large part because he was such an iconic whale for me from the very beginning. When I first started watching the Southern Residents, there were only three adult males in the entire population (kind of hard to believe, because now we're seeing such a male-bias among viable calves that we're hoping for females all the time). One of those "original" adult males was Mega, so he was one of the very first whales I was ever able to identify. In addition to his tall dorsal fin, he was easily identified by the large notch in the middle of his fin.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Og8QPzrHzA4/X6CN-33CqfI/AAAAAAAAU1I/raOPwwjNfz0DKR646wD-KpBOKlTe7dLjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_0050.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Og8QPzrHzA4/X6CN-33CqfI/AAAAAAAAU1I/raOPwwjNfz0DKR646wD-KpBOKlTe7dLjwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/DSC_0050.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mega and "the girls" in 2005 - his sisters L77 Matia and L94 Calypso and elder female L25 Ocean Sun</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;">Mega was part of a small sub-group of L-Pod known as the L12s. While occasionally given the tongue-in-cheek characterization of being "boring" whales (because they often are spread out and doing long dives, thus being less exciting to watch) , they've always been one of my favorite groups to see, perhaps because I have so many special memories of them. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uVo5SdxNYuY/X6CLy2dSBbI/AAAAAAAAU0w/EaUDCDMkL_8ZtN3RMrWmNAVl-xNpShY8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2811/Lolita%2527sFamily-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1118" data-original-width="2811" height="159" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uVo5SdxNYuY/X6CLy2dSBbI/AAAAAAAAU0w/EaUDCDMkL_8ZtN3RMrWmNAVl-xNpShY8wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h159/Lolita%2527sFamily-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The L12s, with Mega right in the middle</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">When I first got to know him, Mega had just lost his mom, L11 Squirty, but his sisters had yet to have any offspring of their own, so it was always the trio of siblings I looked out for. Adult males that lose their mothers have a dramatically increased likelihood of dying themselves, and those that survive seem to do so in large part because they find an adoptive mother figure to "take them in", so to speak. Such was the case with Mega. While he was often seen with his sisters, he was also often seen with his adoptive mothers L25 Ocean Sun, the matriarch of the L12 sub-group with no living descendants of her own (save for perhaps Lolita/Tokitae, the last Southern Resident surviving in captivity, who is theorized to be L25's daughter due to their proximity in capture photos).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T4QE3eja2ac/X6CBwqduMHI/AAAAAAAAU0Y/7rhcI5cRdOY6PnorfChRi28XhZj0Rk6MACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/L41andL25%2B1-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1638" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T4QE3eja2ac/X6CBwqduMHI/AAAAAAAAU0Y/7rhcI5cRdOY6PnorfChRi28XhZj0Rk6MACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h320/L41andL25%2B1-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>L41 with L25</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In another "it's hard to believe now", back in my early years the L12s were the whales I encountered most often after J-Pod, being known at the time for the "westside shuffle" and often spending hours hanging out in front of Lime Kiln. But those afternoons of seeing the L12s go north and south and north and south from Lime Kiln will be how I always remember Mega; while not every pass was like this, it seemed like more often than not he was right in the kelp.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-05ZhRKwQwj4/X6CAVNrUZ1I/AAAAAAAAU0E/fprdwYsIGBUgBgvNqX57RjsUVIYkqz7PACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DSC_0010-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-05ZhRKwQwj4/X6CAVNrUZ1I/AAAAAAAAU0E/fprdwYsIGBUgBgvNqX57RjsUVIYkqz7PACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/DSC_0010-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The way I'll best remember Mega: wowing onlookers right off the rocks at Lime Kiln</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>My all-time favorite photo of him came during one of the first-ever trips I worked as a naturalist, when he broke off from the rest of his family group and swam right under the boat. I was standing on the roof of the vessel and perfectly positioned to watch him emerge, capturing this unique angle of the very beginning of his exhale.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kpZjL7PKdlY/X6CA4BfWI4I/AAAAAAAAU0M/cWFvsRz5boc1XjE5puh0qixQmbWZh6a8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/15-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kpZjL7PKdlY/X6CA4BfWI4I/AAAAAAAAU0M/cWFvsRz5boc1XjE5puh0qixQmbWZh6a8gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/15-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mega and J1 Ruffles were always the most iconic males to me, and it turns out that was a fitting association. Through genetic tests, it was determined that as of 2017, more than 50% of the living Southern Resident population was either directly or indirectly descended from those two males. While the adult male bottleneck that occurred in the early 2000s surely had something to do with it, it's also perhaps an indicator that either the older and/or larger males are the most desirable mates. Mega is the largest Southern Resident male among those measured by the photogrammetry research team, coming in at 7.3m / 24 ft.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MFMKrtWbwMQ/X6CD0UBoz3I/AAAAAAAAU0k/v4YV-7i52Qc7ENNju7J7plxXXuZNjtaagCLcBGAsYHQ/s1672/L41_2015_noaa_fisheries_vancouver_aquarium_09.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1253" data-original-width="1672" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MFMKrtWbwMQ/X6CD0UBoz3I/AAAAAAAAU0k/v4YV-7i52Qc7ENNju7J7plxXXuZNjtaagCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/L41_2015_noaa_fisheries_vancouver_aquarium_09.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>2015 aerial photogrammetry photo of L41 by NOAA Fisheries/ SR3</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Per <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acv.12413" target="_blank">Ford et al.'s 2018 paper </a>on paternity in the Southern Residents, Mega is the probable father of the following whales:<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>J34, J35, J36, J37, J40, J44, J45, J53</li><li>K33, K34, K35, K36, K42</li><li>L95, L100, L101, L106, L112, L116</li></ul><p style="text-align: justify;">In that sense, perhaps for more so than any whale save J1, Mega's legacy will truly live on for many generations. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For some reason, the L12 sub-group became more scarce in recent years, so much so
that in 2019, it was the first year that I personally didn't see them at
all. That means my last photo of Mega goes all the way back to September 2018, where he was traveling with his niece L119 Joy. Mega lived a good, long life - he was over 40 years old when he passed away. We can only hope all his descendants are blessed with the same fertility and longevity.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ea2sM68r6y4/X6CMwiHkgvI/AAAAAAAAU08/X6kw22ivGX0qxVjYW0dmJYnQZeFQFbhfgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9495-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ea2sM68r6y4/X6CMwiHkgvI/AAAAAAAAU08/X6kw22ivGX0qxVjYW0dmJYnQZeFQFbhfgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_9495-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The last photo I took of Mega, in September 2018. He's traveling with his niece L119 Joy.</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>New Additions</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">To help counteract the nostalgia that comes from writing these posts, I always like to end with a note of welcome to the whales that have been born into the population over the previous year. In some years, there were no births to celebrate. In many years, the deaths outnumbered the births, sometimes by a lot. This year, there's joy in the fact that with the birth of two little whales in September, the population has actually grown by one.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">J57 feels in some ways like a royal baby, born to J35 Tahlequah two years after the tragic loss of her previous calf that gained global attention as she carried the body for 17 days. Tahlequah certainly has celebrity status in the media, so J57's birth was big news.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R1UxAaH_bCk/X6CO8oUK46I/AAAAAAAAU1U/3oO9ks1v8rMJwSJIDqRBAkhnz_H-V_r8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_1805.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R1UxAaH_bCk/X6CO8oUK46I/AAAAAAAAU1U/3oO9ks1v8rMJwSJIDqRBAkhnz_H-V_r8gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_1805.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The little dorsal fin of J57 next to mom J35 Tahlequah in September</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I've only gotten one brief glimpse of J57 so far, but I have no doubt I'll see plenty more of him alongside the other calf, J58, who was born just a couple weeks later to a whale very close to my heart, J41 Eclipse. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4EyOh5OLRRk/X6CQMi0AGLI/AAAAAAAAU1g/F6XDTPHh5qkanRMCmCDUx-R9r5RXnuVUACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_3485.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4EyOh5OLRRk/X6CQMi0AGLI/AAAAAAAAU1g/F6XDTPHh5qkanRMCmCDUx-R9r5RXnuVUACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_3485.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Baby J58 between mom J41 Eclipse and big brother J51 Nova</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>2020 has undoubtedly been a rough year, for so many different reasons. But I'm trying my best to hold on to the glimmers of hope for 2021, including these two new little whales, and the word that there are other prengancies among the Southern Residents, so hopefully there are more calves on the way in the near future.<br /></p>Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-87453481859347330132020-10-06T21:38:00.006-07:002020-10-06T21:38:40.938-07:00A Getaway to Okanogan County<div style="text-align: justify;">With 2020 in no way shaping up as planned, with two cancelled vacations we found
ourselves ready for a little getaway after more than 6 months without leaving
San Juan Island. Only interested in visiting unpopulated areas, wanting to see
some new birds, but also to stay in the state of Washington, we decided to head
due east from home, east of the Cascades into Okanogan County. While we had
explored the Winthrop/Twisp area before, this time we decided to go further
east, renting a home-base cabin 30 minutes east of Tonasket out in the woods. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">It didn't take long to start seeing new bird species to add to our photo year list; the most exciting one on the way to our cabin was a flock of mountain bluebirds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S6kltkL4KM4/X3y2Cva66gI/AAAAAAAAUto/NkQGQx9UnZstpAGlVp_FkG-DxqpcSXEogCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4040.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S6kltkL4KM4/X3y2Cva66gI/AAAAAAAAUto/NkQGQx9UnZstpAGlVp_FkG-DxqpcSXEogCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4040.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">While the goal of the trip was birding, the all-around change of scenery is much appreciated, including the vegetation. It's amazing how different the plant life can be just a few hours drive from home. I could spend all day looking at the trees and shrubs and trying to identify them - in fact we did spend an hour on one quarter-mile trail just looking at the plants! We've timed it well for the fall colors, too, which as been an added bonus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw6NzvEeRhI/X3y5KC1KC5I/AAAAAAAAUt4/qjgjlnmWYewxzfK204r3KB_8JQS2IP6bQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/IMG_9362%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw6NzvEeRhI/X3y5KC1KC5I/AAAAAAAAUt4/qjgjlnmWYewxzfK204r3KB_8JQS2IP6bQCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/IMG_9362%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiO9ucK-NRc/X3y5Jhm3TxI/AAAAAAAAUt0/lT2ez4M37vQ5fX2U4jetIgAXco5c_DgcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/IMG_9368.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiO9ucK-NRc/X3y5Jhm3TxI/AAAAAAAAUt0/lT2ez4M37vQ5fX2U4jetIgAXco5c_DgcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/IMG_9368.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Our plan has been a series of loop drives from our home base cabin, exploring all kinds of back roads in search of wildlife. The weather has been better than expected - in fact, hotter than expected, and we did not pack accordingly! But no complaints about the all-day sunshine and the amazing photographic opportunities that has helped provide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ev37hsYCo4/X3y52u3ZvwI/AAAAAAAAUuE/uXS2t8Edi_Q2TPKQeEOdPDWNMBjs6FllQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ev37hsYCo4/X3y52u3ZvwI/AAAAAAAAUuE/uXS2t8Edi_Q2TPKQeEOdPDWNMBjs6FllQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h320/DSC_4087.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black-billed magpie in perfect light<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the biggest surprises of the trip was finding a black bear! While we had visited suitable bear habitat, where we saw it was not at all where I would picture a bear - in the middle of farm country. I'm glad I got a photo before it disappeared over the hill, or I might not have believed I really saw it!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TaEXOt8xqQ0/X3y6V00MF0I/AAAAAAAAUuM/Yz4HhKRkYa0RRZEu22s04wowNT5nd1owgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TaEXOt8xqQ0/X3y6V00MF0I/AAAAAAAAUuM/Yz4HhKRkYa0RRZEu22s04wowNT5nd1owgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4230.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The mammal diversity has been better than expected as well. The black bear was the largest, and my second favorite is probably the smallest, the yellow-pine chipmunk.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kO-SUtKWQrU/X3y8exbsPjI/AAAAAAAAUu8/EhzCdsIwj9wUhGmcxgHyIoQlI4WbQYajQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4385.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kO-SUtKWQrU/X3y8exbsPjI/AAAAAAAAUu8/EhzCdsIwj9wUhGmcxgHyIoQlI4WbQYajQCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h400/DSC_4385.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> Another unexpected find was the ghost town of Molson near the Canadian border. Not only was the town, complete with original pioneer buildings you are free to explore, amazing in its own right, but it also neighbors a series of lakes where we found species I never would have anticipated on this trip, including blue-winged teal and Barrow's goldeneye.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tw4PXbgq0Bo/X3y7DZ7MdOI/AAAAAAAAUuY/AsfkhB9YeaItcm8B526UK5f3DUirustGQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/IMG_9400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tw4PXbgq0Bo/X3y7DZ7MdOI/AAAAAAAAUuY/AsfkhB9YeaItcm8B526UK5f3DUirustGQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/IMG_9400.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ghost town of Molson, WA<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mJeA8mtX0PE/X3y7d3s1ccI/AAAAAAAAUug/4MiL53AqKnEezMGfdzIqZDwM4FY14gH7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/IMG_9405.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mJeA8mtX0PE/X3y7d3s1ccI/AAAAAAAAUug/4MiL53AqKnEezMGfdzIqZDwM4FY14gH7gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/IMG_9405.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Molson Lakes, hosting an incredible diversity of waterfowl species<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The trip turned up two hoped-for life birds, in addition to more than 15 species for the photo year list.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C0A7PZCAOnw/X3y8E1X2aFI/AAAAAAAAUus/y175by_ecPsbsNmM2Hn3YHerSssLnzbYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C0A7PZCAOnw/X3y8E1X2aFI/AAAAAAAAUus/y175by_ecPsbsNmM2Hn3YHerSssLnzbYQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4112.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life bird #1: White-headed woodpecker, a serendipitous find of a species I've longingly look at in the field guide for many years!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cm826eja76o/X3y8FS9IHRI/AAAAAAAAUuw/bbeEr6KzMeElvaE3kZ1aP6n1WFXWhqKSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cm826eja76o/X3y8FS9IHRI/AAAAAAAAUuw/bbeEr6KzMeElvaE3kZ1aP6n1WFXWhqKSwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h320/DSC_4345.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life bird #2: The well-camouflaged gray partridge <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The so-called game birds were among the target species for the trip. I figured California quail would be the most common, but I wasn't prepared for just how many flocks we would see! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1qZPud_s-2o/X3y9NzlUvbI/AAAAAAAAUvI/zR3ANS8FDcU7A8p3MWqdlTgvhdCsq1aZwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1qZPud_s-2o/X3y9NzlUvbI/AAAAAAAAUvI/zR3ANS8FDcU7A8p3MWqdlTgvhdCsq1aZwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4467.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ubiquitous California quail, ranging in flock size from half a dozen to more than 30<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My goal was to see at least one other species which we did with the gray partridge, but we lucked out again by finding a group of chukar, too, a bird I've only seen twice and a lifer for Jason.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ulxpr-NVVXE/X3y9mPet3jI/AAAAAAAAUvQ/fq_v6ja-Z_w4jLjtT6dd8njJPFSf7xopgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4519.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ulxpr-NVVXE/X3y9mPet3jI/AAAAAAAAUvQ/fq_v6ja-Z_w4jLjtT6dd8njJPFSf7xopgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4519.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A brief look at a chukar<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I've always been fascinated by the fact that birding seems to come in "spurts". You can go through extremely quiet stretches and then seemingly hit the jackpot, finding unrelated species all in the same place. Such it was on the chukar day, after seeing nothing much more than magpies and robins for 2/3 of the day, a flurry of excitement in one unplanned roadside stop turned up not only the chukar, but a flock of over 100 sandhill cranes migrating overhead, and our first golden eagle of the trip.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DHNl0rKVhOI/X3y-Rzs3dCI/AAAAAAAAUvc/zbTR5AIM8BsizFe5Oq2WJXb_28FIebjtACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DHNl0rKVhOI/X3y-Rzs3dCI/AAAAAAAAUvc/zbTR5AIM8BsizFe5Oq2WJXb_28FIebjtACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4514.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandhill cranes riding the thermals well overhead<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q2_MPlktKgA/X3y-Z9V2CpI/AAAAAAAAUvg/XwhG4WXhGSUiEo9KIb_H08G4cioMICjGACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4567.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q2_MPlktKgA/X3y-Z9V2CpI/AAAAAAAAUvg/XwhG4WXhGSUiEo9KIb_H08G4cioMICjGACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4567.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Golden eagle! Another hoped-for species of the trip<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I keep saying this trip was primarily about bird-watching, but really, it was about immersing in nature, enjoying all creatures great and small, and getting a much needed break from at all, at least as much as is possible in 2020.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_75oScncUy0/X31FcHah3eI/AAAAAAAAUwQ/u8fLddP-7qA9DjpZxaUWwUiNolzSnwztwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_75oScncUy0/X31FcHah3eI/AAAAAAAAUwQ/u8fLddP-7qA9DjpZxaUWwUiNolzSnwztwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/DSC_4453.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orange sulphur butterfly<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6fmKgUyfYN0/X31FjcJYkOI/AAAAAAAAUwU/Geyz5LITHVMHUXXVuJgG7S99TeUuh7UQQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_4604.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6fmKgUyfYN0/X31FjcJYkOI/AAAAAAAAUwU/Geyz5LITHVMHUXXVuJgG7S99TeUuh7UQQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/DSC_4604.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Douglas squirrel<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It was rejuvenating to get away for a bit, and also a great reminder that you don't have to go far to go exploring. I will definitely be reliving these warm, sunny days and all the cool critters we saw through whatever it is fall and winter has in store for us in the coming months.<br /></div>Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-41306327662998082212020-08-30T14:43:00.001-07:002020-08-30T14:43:11.261-07:00End of August Check-In<p style="text-align: justify;">As this unconventional year has gone on, the motivation to blog has been low, even though spending time in nature and the outdoors has been my greatest solace. This has been my longest hiatus ever from blogging, but I've still been doing a lot of photography and do miss having an outlet to share my photos! So here's an attempt at getting back to it again.<br /><br />While July was an incredible month (read: like "normal" aka the old days) when we had visits from all three Southern Resident pods including a two-week stay by J-Pod. August, by contrast, has been very quiet on the whale front for us, with just a single brief shore-based encounter a few days ago. But we've still gotten out on the water a few times and have also been doing a lot of bird-watching, especially looking for shore birds, on land.<br /><br />On August 16, with my parents visiting, we headed out on the water with Maya's Legacy on a trip that will be one of the highlights of the summer. It was a hot afternoon (so extra nice to be on the water with the cooling breeze) and the sky-blue waters were like glass. We saw two humpback whales: Two Spot (<span class="st">CS631) in San Juan Channel and Valiant (</span><span class="st">BCX1068 calf 2017) at Salmon Bank.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B7PN3iaO6gU/X0wYlXh8XEI/AAAAAAAAUms/78_ayHXRvSEn_MyV3ekrAri8VXN5kfrTQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="343" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B7PN3iaO6gU/X0wYlXh8XEI/AAAAAAAAUms/78_ayHXRvSEn_MyV3ekrAri8VXN5kfrTQCLcBGAsYHQ/w513-h343/DSC_8113.jpg" title="Two-Spot in San Juan Channel" width="513" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two Spot in San Juan Channel<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="st">Valiant, missing a couple chunks out of his very scraped-up flukes, survived an encounter with killer whales when less than a year old. This whale is also known to be the calf of </span><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption">BCX1068 Split Fluke, who is in turn the offspring of </span></span></span><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show">BCY0160 Heather, whales known to migrate to Mexico. It's pretty awesome that we are getting to know the life histories of Salish Sea humpbacks to this extent!</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ciyPIRgARWk/X0wZOmkFNxI/AAAAAAAAUm0/PG7v-h2BTskHKACkzotyzywkWTl9ZdtnQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8192.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ciyPIRgARWk/X0wZOmkFNxI/AAAAAAAAUm0/PG7v-h2BTskHKACkzotyzywkWTl9ZdtnQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_8192.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The distinctive flukes of Valiant with the Salmon Bank marker in the background<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">Next we were lucky enough to get to head out to Smith and Minor Islands, which I've only been able to visit a handful of times. They're offshore due south of Lopez Island and offer amazing wildlife viewing both on their shorelines and in the extensive kelp bed that surround them. One of the main highlights there are the tufted puffins, which nest in burrows on Smith Island. There have been higher numbers of them there this year; in the past, there may only be one or two pairs seen, but on our visit, we saw more than a dozen tufted puffins, though we weren't able to spot the lone horned puffin that has also been hanging out there.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LsqA0Az7JbI/X0wZtoV8rHI/AAAAAAAAUnA/bBp6992NE_8QRXnlQmRXCKLiDFLPC6vIQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1280" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LsqA0Az7JbI/X0wZtoV8rHI/AAAAAAAAUnA/bBp6992NE_8QRXnlQmRXCKLiDFLPC6vIQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h410/DSC_8265.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eQhXscuLePk/X0wZtZ6751I/AAAAAAAAUm8/XQfTN5Rh-IYq3Poiga8iu5U_9Wk5UT7cQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eQhXscuLePk/X0wZtZ6751I/AAAAAAAAUm8/XQfTN5Rh-IYq3Poiga8iu5U_9Wk5UT7cQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_8320.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">I'm not sure I've ever even circumnavigated Minor Island, where a long sand spit offers a haul out for harbor seals:</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHX0pXg-BkE/X0wZ7hDVN3I/AAAAAAAAUnE/yKy3HSdXlu0fzzfGO7HiZQHsXXCt0XRSACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8281.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHX0pXg-BkE/X0wZ7hDVN3I/AAAAAAAAUnE/yKy3HSdXlu0fzzfGO7HiZQHsXXCt0XRSACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_8281.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">Back on land, as I mentioned, we've been scouting out shorebirds in particular. As fun as that has been, it's hard to believe the reason we're seeing them is because fall migration has already begun! Time, this year more so than any other, has been so bizarre in how at times it has been passing so slowly and in others so quickly. In any case, we've been having a lot of luck turning up a nice variety of migrating species!</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-As502iyk_G0/X0wapjPfvuI/AAAAAAAAUnw/5ryrAE1wRWAHq0jDKJw3xYvD7evVM0dFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8652.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1280" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-As502iyk_G0/X0wapjPfvuI/AAAAAAAAUnw/5ryrAE1wRWAHq0jDKJw3xYvD7evVM0dFwCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h410/DSC_8652.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Least sandpiper at Third Lagoon</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v8JUEy5ggjY/X0wapUjcAAI/AAAAAAAAUns/VcTyGUukj4wGprbMAqKbWEH0Yjfp8A6LQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8862%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1280" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v8JUEy5ggjY/X0wapUjcAAI/AAAAAAAAUns/VcTyGUukj4wGprbMAqKbWEH0Yjfp8A6LQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h410/DSC_8862%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Least sandpiper at False Bay</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gWLtL4NdntU/X0wap8Q5RqI/AAAAAAAAUn4/e4ZWfG4rYEwXpVkyeRRtaqDN0Wrau7pygCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gWLtL4NdntU/X0wap8Q5RqI/AAAAAAAAUn4/e4ZWfG4rYEwXpVkyeRRtaqDN0Wrau7pygCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h410/DSC_9126.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sanderling at South Beach<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-izdvjwaKrSM/X0waqMAtGlI/AAAAAAAAUn8/o4locee5Rqk-BAo2KJ5W8ZR7EBlC2yklgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-izdvjwaKrSM/X0waqMAtGlI/AAAAAAAAUn8/o4locee5Rqk-BAo2KJ5W8ZR7EBlC2yklgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_9250.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Semipalmated plover at Jackson Beach<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K2E41VzOwg8/X0wbGMg15EI/AAAAAAAAUoQ/H79QCCsQ9m8197pyfvOWZpNBammEOeI0QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_8975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K2E41VzOwg8/X0wbGMg15EI/AAAAAAAAUoQ/H79QCCsQ9m8197pyfvOWZpNBammEOeI0QCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_8975.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Western sandpiper at South Beach<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">While there have still been a lot of orcas in the Salish Sea in August, we're looking at the likelihood of the first August on record without the Southern Residents here, as it has been all Bigg's killer whales. While I've been tracking their movements (and many interesting social groupings and family splits) from afar, my only encounter with them was on August 26 when we saw the T46s and two of the T137s pass Reuben Tarte County Park. It was short, but sweet, and the way this year has gone, I was thankful just to see some dorsal fins.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VxpJx0KH1CQ/X0wbm2zYtEI/AAAAAAAAUoY/C5NhcVqMUBoAwQEUvCo6bmYDeW0LieKqwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DSC_9175.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VxpJx0KH1CQ/X0wbm2zYtEI/AAAAAAAAUoY/C5NhcVqMUBoAwQEUvCo6bmYDeW0LieKqwCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/DSC_9175.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T46E Thor and T137B Tempest off Reuben Tarte<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">At the very least, the weather has continued to be amazing, so we've been going out for walks a lot in the mornings and/or evenings when it's a little less hot, and yesterday were successful in locating several species we had been trying to find all week:</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-59AigRun2Zw/X0wcHnQVbiI/AAAAAAAAUok/LTYFo_MBcXw-6QU6QyDbWFycEGx2ZCStQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9462.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-59AigRun2Zw/X0wcHnQVbiI/AAAAAAAAUok/LTYFo_MBcXw-6QU6QyDbWFycEGx2ZCStQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_9462.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lesser yellowlegs at Jackson Beach - the 200th bird species I've ever seen in San Juan County!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nP04tRTKC5w/X0wcHpGUhsI/AAAAAAAAUoo/Yvy4u0wqK7EHwFHZgXi9XG4sV-Baxd3MQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nP04tRTKC5w/X0wcHpGUhsI/AAAAAAAAUoo/Yvy4u0wqK7EHwFHZgXi9XG4sV-Baxd3MQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_9474.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Short-billed dowitcher at Jackson Beach<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VMtwT_oHN8c/X0wcH_pWz6I/AAAAAAAAUos/qWPVOQndsPszdPMQqJht20vWoMQcVzylQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9479.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VMtwT_oHN8c/X0wcH_pWz6I/AAAAAAAAUos/qWPVOQndsPszdPMQqJht20vWoMQcVzylQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_9479.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long-billed dowitcher at Jackson Beach<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">This morning, we decided to take our boat out as well to bird San Juan Channel, and again the conditions were perfect.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afNhdpFRc4w/X0wcfQIhkKI/AAAAAAAAUo4/IPaU9u4AKScYwKxlKHbTjqD41Giwct60QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afNhdpFRc4w/X0wcfQIhkKI/AAAAAAAAUo4/IPaU9u4AKScYwKxlKHbTjqD41Giwct60QCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_9512.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A pair of marbled murrelets in Griffin Bay<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">Right at the end we found our target species, too: a dozen red-necked phalaropes.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="st"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uIXyJ1sVjf8/X0wcxQwWO6I/AAAAAAAAUpA/Cf1LAiGpdMkBUX4zpsBzIEzT5yhiaHHFACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/DSC_9634.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uIXyJ1sVjf8/X0wcxQwWO6I/AAAAAAAAUpA/Cf1LAiGpdMkBUX4zpsBzIEzT5yhiaHHFACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h342/DSC_9634.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red-necked phalarope<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">While this year has ended up looking very different than originally anticipated, I've been continuing on with our photo year list challenge, which this year expanded from birds to focus on any vertebrate. The red-necked phalarope was species #175 for the year, not too shabby considering we've been exclusively San Juan Island based since March! We'll see if I can still sneak up to my target of 200 by the end of the year, and I'll also see if I can back to at least a semi-regular habit of blogging!<br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-68431415058515494322020-04-24T17:45:00.000-07:002020-04-24T17:45:01.930-07:00And the World Keeps Turning<div style="text-align: justify;">
While it's been hard to find the motivation to blog in the last month, it hasn't been hard to find the motivation to go out into nature. Not only is April one of my favorite months on San Juan Island regardless, but it's been especially comforting to find some peace and sense of normalcy in these crazy times.</div>
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<br />Before things really shut down and the stay at home order was put into place, we got out for one more on the water encounter with J-Pod in San Juan Channel back in mid-March. As we're quickly heading towards an unprecedented April with NO orca encounters, those two encounters from March are extra special and moments I replay often in my mind!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rwS8-2CxS14/XqOCW5jbdVI/AAAAAAAAUGw/B8F8aFeb53UmtqiF_gt-O-r5j7i6Ho4OACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_7957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rwS8-2CxS14/XqOCW5jbdVI/AAAAAAAAUGw/B8F8aFeb53UmtqiF_gt-O-r5j7i6Ho4OACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_7957.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J-Pod in San Juan Channel on March 21st</td></tr>
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Without whale encounters, the spring bird migration has received my extra attention, especially because I've been participating in two unique challenges over the last few weeks. One is an extension of our year-long challenge to photograph as many vertebrates as we can in 2020; since many of us are restricted to much closer to home for the time being, we're doing a mini 6-week photo blitz to see how many bird species we can photograph within 1 mile of our home. I had hoped to get 30 species, but am surprised to already have more than 50, with a week to go!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VRBXM4iCfcs/XqOC9vpToiI/AAAAAAAAUG4/oDtStHHoNAcrB2uULTYqc-1DAYZnUnwawCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_8108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VRBXM4iCfcs/XqOC9vpToiI/AAAAAAAAUG4/oDtStHHoNAcrB2uULTYqc-1DAYZnUnwawCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_8108.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hanging out with a red-breasted nuthatch in our yard</td></tr>
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The other challenge is an extension of the year-long <a href="https://fantasybirding.com/" target="_blank">Fantasy Birding</a> effort I'm participating in for the second year. What is Fantasy Birding, you ask? It's along the lines of fantasy sports, where you pick real-life players to be on your fantasy sports team and gain points based on the actions they take in real-life games. Here, you pick a region to virtually bird-watch in, and you score points based on lists real birders submit in that area to eBird. Again, due to everyone staying at home much more, we've started a sub-game called the Yard Squad Challenge. Captains chose birders from around the country (plus one international player per team) to bird their yards for four consecutive two week periods, and the race is to see which team can see the most species collectively. Both of these games, on top of the stay at home order, have meant daily bird walks from home and lots of time spent observing the changes in my neighborhood, whereas in previous years I might have watched the migration from further afield (like last year when we went to Westport!).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H5MFUpggxeY/XqOEGiGjp2I/AAAAAAAAUHI/rARQGpNC2tgKNzImn1bTV3Mmllv2ZsxlACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_8237.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H5MFUpggxeY/XqOEGiGjp2I/AAAAAAAAUHI/rARQGpNC2tgKNzImn1bTV3Mmllv2ZsxlACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_8237.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watching migration from close to home means many more "first of the year" birds in our yard - like this yellow-rumped warlber</td></tr>
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One highlight of this very local birding was a couple of weeks ago when, for every morning of the week, you could reliably see/hear all 5 of our local woodpecker species within a quarter-mile of our house: downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, and red-breasted sapsucker.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-meZCX3GxPSU/XqOErtvlIDI/AAAAAAAAUHU/9zKEWxs2ytwtSjlMquKSlFHpQbKUiD73wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_8919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-meZCX3GxPSU/XqOErtvlIDI/AAAAAAAAUHU/9zKEWxs2ytwtSjlMquKSlFHpQbKUiD73wCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_8919.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The red-breasted sapsuckers have, in my opinion, the best drumming ditty of any woodpecker, made even better when executed on a man-made metal surface</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-47Dbhj_qIHI/XqOFWq0hpYI/AAAAAAAAUHo/6ZMp3T0vQAQgY8jMk_hLlqW4rYEQ-evQwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_9973-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-47Dbhj_qIHI/XqOFWq0hpYI/AAAAAAAAUHo/6ZMp3T0vQAQgY8jMk_hLlqW4rYEQ-evQwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_9973-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A northern flicker briefly visits our suet - actually the hardest of our 5 local species to get a photograph of this year!</td></tr>
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There's also moments like this quick visit from a sharp-shinned hawk to our feeder tree, which are likely to be missed when we're not at home as much. This juvenile was not successful in picking off any of our other visitors....this time!</div>
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And nothing says spring to me like the return of the swallows. Every year a pair of violet-green swallows checks out our nest boxes, but they have yet to use one. Will this be the year?</div>
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Thankfully, while some public lands are closed, other local natural areas have been open, so we have been able to go out and bird elsewhere on the island as well. This has turned up some other great finds that we definitely wouldn't have been able to see in our yard!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bald eagle landing on a rocky shoreline with the Olympic Mountains in the background</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A singing savannah sparrow</td></tr>
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False Bay has been especially successful in turning up shorebirds this spring.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A flock of dunlin</td></tr>
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Thanks to a tip from a friend and fellow birder, we also got to see a whimbrel there, a new species for my county life list! </div>
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A few of our winter seabirds are still lingering, and some of them like this horned grebe are giving us a rare glimpse (for here) of their summer plumage before departing.</div>
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In late April/early May of each year, English Camp and the Mt. Young trail can always be counted on for many "first of the year" species, but this year was a personal record where in a single morning I added my first house wren, Cassin's vireo, chipping sparrow, Pacific-slope flycatcher, Townsend's warbler, and black-throated gray warbler all in one visit!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First singing house wren of the year at Mt. Young</td></tr>
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I returned a day later to try for some audio recordings, and was surprised to find another species: a Townsend's solitaire! I only see one of these on the island every few years, and this time it wasn't a single one, but at least five of them.</div>
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Regardless of what's going on in our crazy human world, there's some comfort to be found in the fact that the cycle of life is continuing on in the natural world. I am very thankful all this is happening in the spring, as I can't imagine going through this without the ability to spend a lot of time outside in the sunshine! </div>
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I will cut this post off here so it's focus remains on the birds, but there's another species that's an icon of spring on San Juan Island, and they deserve their own post!</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-15280501391453100312020-03-13T17:38:00.001-07:002020-03-13T17:38:47.353-07:00March 9: J-Pod in San Juan Channel<div style="text-align: left;">
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Word came in Monday afternoon that J-Pod was in Boundary Pass, but instead of taking their typical route southwest towards Turn Point, they veered towards San Juan Channel. With the sun shining and the winds calm, it was just too tempting not to duck out of work early and get on the water! While we had heard they were very spread out, about half the pod grouped up right as we got on scene north of Yellow Island. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J38 Cookie</td></tr>
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Historically, visits were few and far between this time of year, and we would expect the Southern Residents to be around more starting in April. In recent years, that has completely changed, and we now see them more in October-March than we do from April-July!</div>
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Interestingly, this mixed sub-group contained some members of every matriline. It's definitely something I've noticed in recent years, particularly with the losses of some of the older females like J2 Granny, J8 Spieden, J14 Samish, and J17 Princess Angeline: J-Pod is a lot less likely to travel in matrilineal groups, and more often travels in mixed groups.<br />
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In typical Southern Resident fashion, the whales were very surface active, which also delighted passengers aboard the inter-island ferry that came by:<br />
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As the whales neared Friday Harbor the large group we were with fanned out, but a smaller group of whales came together and were presumably in pursuit of salmon, but the way they were circling and lunging at the surface together made them almost look like transients!<br />
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As these whales continued on, we spotted a couple blows closer to San Juan Island and headed over there to find J16 Slick with her son J26 Mike. The lighting was perfect for those epic backlit blow shots, the ones I will never get tired of!<br />
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As Slick and Mike passed Point Caution, they were lined up perfectly for a shot in front of Friday Harbor, and the Olympic Mountains in the background were icing on the cake!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J16 Slick and J26 Mike in front of Friday Harbor</td></tr>
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Interestingly, as the whales so often do when they come down San Juan Channel in the winter, they stalled out right at Friday Harbor. Suddenly they all turned to cross over towards the Shaw Island shoreline, where they again grouped up, this time heading north.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J26 Mike crossing San Juan Channel</td></tr>
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It was at this point that we got a look at J-Pod's youngest member, J56 Tofino, along with her mom J31 Tsuchi. Tofino was in a very energetic mood, breaching over and over and over again! Such a great sight to see.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J31 Tsuchi and J56 Tofino</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J56 Tofino catches some serious air in front of the Conservation Canines research vessel</td></tr>
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We knew it was going to get dark soon, but it was just too beautiful of an evening to leave. It was truly one of those moments that you dream about: the evening light, the quiet waters, and all of J-Pod traveling together, the sound of their blows echoing across the channel.<br />
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It was an unforgettable night 💙💙💙<br />
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-89815907258851181742020-02-09T21:59:00.000-08:002020-02-09T21:59:34.896-08:00Winter Water Birds<div style="text-align: justify;">
After a sunny start to 2020, it has been a very wet and windy year so far! This weekend we finally got a break in the weather, so we took advantage to get out on our boat to go birding in Griffin Bay, adding half a dozen species to the photo year list in the process! Here are some highlights from this morning on the water.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QeahK6eg7tU/XkDwhIO0PbI/AAAAAAAATvY/n51NzcJPNUMYknvofJ08oeB4x_10uUXFQCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_5563-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QeahK6eg7tU/XkDwhIO0PbI/AAAAAAAATvY/n51NzcJPNUMYknvofJ08oeB4x_10uUXFQCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_5563-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mew gulls</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancient murrelet</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ftzzCww5Vg0/XkDwvVJAcZI/AAAAAAAATv8/D5ve-kK1n-IapKiHelUWce90wj52eWeJACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_5698-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ftzzCww5Vg0/XkDwvVJAcZI/AAAAAAAATv8/D5ve-kK1n-IapKiHelUWce90wj52eWeJACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_5698-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marbled murrelets</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long-tailed duck</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rn76K19I_vI/XkDwiaO4QXI/AAAAAAAATvo/saIhXKN07bstG-iXqBhG1gOtPc7tURrFQCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_5656-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rn76K19I_vI/XkDwiaO4QXI/AAAAAAAATvo/saIhXKN07bstG-iXqBhG1gOtPc7tURrFQCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_5656-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long-tailed ducks</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XN-XdNx0Sb4/XkDwhS5KenI/AAAAAAAATvc/VM3GP9MZFfgtlAzuzB1wqTriHLWST2FgACEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_5612-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XN-XdNx0Sb4/XkDwhS5KenI/AAAAAAAATvc/VM3GP9MZFfgtlAzuzB1wqTriHLWST2FgACEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_5612-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Common murre</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4eGXZSdnOu4/XkDwjMbhDRI/AAAAAAAATvw/Z2hXVSEiuF8B3yKlzvfZE22OGYRsfr2pgCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_5731-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4eGXZSdnOu4/XkDwjMbhDRI/AAAAAAAATvw/Z2hXVSEiuF8B3yKlzvfZE22OGYRsfr2pgCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_5731-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Common murres</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YuLqYCC8haY/XkDwisTpalI/AAAAAAAATvs/2Hw_UCNKOT438TNAeC5-4R3UywGkN0FrgCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_5663-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YuLqYCC8haY/XkDwisTpalI/AAAAAAAATvs/2Hw_UCNKOT438TNAeC5-4R3UywGkN0FrgCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_5663-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pigeon guillemot</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red-necked grebe</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UMFV8P3ZtpY/XkDwj0IP9GI/AAAAAAAATv4/BktMwheW3EYwrWOhFM30YADOe_tCWmdcgCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_5755-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UMFV8P3ZtpY/XkDwj0IP9GI/AAAAAAAATv4/BktMwheW3EYwrWOhFM30YADOe_tCWmdcgCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_5755-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back on land - Cooper's hawk</td></tr>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-81944067450225410052020-01-01T22:34:00.000-08:002020-01-01T22:34:00.245-08:00End of one year list, beginning of another<div style="text-align: justify;">
With the end of 2019, so too came the end of my first decade tracking my bird year lists. While I traveled a lot throughout the year, I didn't go as far as some years, with just three states/provinces visited (Washington, Oregon, British Columbia). As a result, it's perhaps not surprising that 2019 was a tie for my second lowest year list count at 192 species. I fell short of my goal of reaching 200 species, and also fell just short of my goal of photographing 90% of the species on my year list, registering 88.5% with 170 species photographed.</div>
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<a href="http://lalows.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Dave</a> and my dad have also participated in the annual year list challenge, and my dad again won for the 8th time in the nine years he has participated, aided by some great trips to different regions. </div>
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I added two life birds in 2019: the red knot while hitting the spring shorebird migration in Westport, and the lapland longspur during fall migration right on San Juan Island - a long sought after species for me, and a great photo op to boot!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lapland longspur: one of my two lifers in 2019, and also one of my favorite bird photos overall for the year</td></tr>
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I did manage to tally 144 species in San Juan County for the year, just above my annual average of 140 species, but still well short of the 176 species tallied by Phil! </div>
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Ever since I started the year list challenge, January 1 has become a big day for birding. The last several years have been limited to San Juan Island, which alongside less than optimal weather has made for lower than hoped for Day One totals. This year, I was excited to be able to start the year list north of the border near the Fraser River delta, one of my favorite winter birding areas. On top of that, after a very stormy end to 2019, we got sunshine and no wind to start 2020!</div>
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The first and main stop for the day was the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, where despite not getting a super early start we still managed to beat the holiday crowds and tally 43 species at the preserve. The first unexpected find was a very cooperative flock of cedar waxwings.</div>
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<br />It was so nice to start off the year with great photo ops of many of the common species; it feels so much better to add sunlit photos to the photo year list rather than dreary gray images!</div>
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Two more unforeseen additions were this fox sparrow and a flock of 30 (!!) greater yellowlegs:</div>
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About a dozen of us have also been participating in a photo year list challenge for the last three years. in 2019 we added the twist of no "hand of man" in the photos, meaning no birds sitting on wires, with buildings in the background, etc. The 2020 edition of the photo year list is now expanding beyond birds to include all vertebrates, and my first non-avian addition was this eastern gray squirrel. The first mammal I saw was actually a mink, which would have been an awesome addition as it's not guaranteed to make the list this year at all, but sadly he was too fast for me to get the camera up in time!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mammal #1 for the year: eastern gray squirrel</td></tr>
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One of the most hoped-for species at Reifel was the sandhill crane. We got a flyover early on in our visit, and I thought that was going to be it, but thankfully just before we left we came across five of them in just a perfect setting for photos.</div>
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After Reifel we made two other stops that were a bit disappointing in their lack of birdiness, and the best species added over the rest of the day indeed came alongside the road and not at one of our stops: a rough-legged hawk. (Yay for the no hand of man rule!)</div>
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<br />Sadly after one awesome day it looks like the weather will be turning again, but we've still got a couple days of play before heading back home and to work, so fingers crossed there is still some good birding to be had despite the weather! Day one, though, certainly did not disappoint, with 54 species on the bird year list and 37 species on the vertebrate photo year list.</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-91778146973369989912019-12-28T22:31:00.000-08:002019-12-28T22:31:45.817-08:00Abundant Wildlife at the End of December<div style="text-align: justify;">
Normally I associate this time of year with bad weather, short days, and hunkering down inside, but the last week has proven that wildlife in this region can be epic regardless of the season!<br /><br />On December 21 we headed out on the water with friends before taking off for the Christmas holiday, and were surprised to find an active group of 10+ humpbacks in the Strait of Georgia. Humpbacks, like transient killer whales, were rare when I first started spending time here in the early 2000s, but both have been increasing dramatically in recent years. Even with the recent influx of humpbacks, we expect them to be gone and off to their breeding grounds by December, but perhaps with the increasing population some of them will start staying year-round. Things are changing so fast in the Salish Sea!</div>
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The first group we came across of about half a dozen whales was super active at the surface: breaching, lunging, tail slapping, and trumpeting. My friends who have seen humpbacks at their breeding grounds said it looked like a male rowdy group; it makes sense their hormones might be kicking in even if they haven't left for warmer waters! These types of behavior are amazing to see regardless of the season in the Salish Sea, but even more astounding given that it was December!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BCX1233 "Coon"</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MMX0047 "Bullet"</td></tr>
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There were several "new to me" humpbacks in the group, including one that particularly caught my eye due to the very white flukes:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BCZ0297 "Pulteney"</td></tr>
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It turns out this sighting was extra cool, because this was the first time this whale was documented in the southern Strait of Georgia/Salish Sea!</div>
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<br />You may be wondering about the humpback naming system, both the alphanumeric designations and the common names. The "BC" refers to whales that have been added to British Columbia/DFO humpback whale catalogue. The X, Y and Z refers to how much black or white
there is on the tail: “X” = less than 20% white; “Y” = 20 to 80% white;
and “Z” = more than 80% white. The common names come from various sources, but in the case of Pulteney, it's in reference to the Pulteney Lighthouse on Malcolm Island off Northern Vancouver Island. Not only is this where this whale is commonly seen, but the dark marking between the white flukes looks like a lighthouse.</div>
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But there were more than just humpbacks up there in the Strait of Georgia! We also got to check out the impressive sea lion (both Steller and California) haul out at the Belle Chains, and a pair of eagles in perfect lighting on a nearby rock.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A very vocal pup!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">California sea lions - uncommon in the San Juans, but there were plenty of them up on this BC haul out!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sea lions always have the best facial expressions >.<</td></tr>
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After a trip down to Portland to visit family and friends for Christmas, we are now back in wildlife mode up north, and today spent time with the bald eagles that congregate along the Nooksack River in the winter to take advantage of the spawning chum salmon. I've been here a couple of times before and it never disappoints, but it was awesome to have more time to spend today. While it's impossible to capture in the photos the experience of having ~50 eagles visible in all directions, the shots speak for themselves in terms of the kinds of behavior that can be witnessed here!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Very close fly-by from an immature</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probably my favorite shot from the morning encounter - the smaller/compressed version really doesn't do it justice, but hopefully it gives you an idea!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lots of multi-eagle interactions</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one is taking flight with a salmon carcass</td></tr>
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I feel so lucky to live in such an amazing part of the world where there is so much wildlife to watch. Here's hoping 2020 starts off with some amazing encounters as well, but it will be hard to top the end of 2019!</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-56791003751873030652019-11-10T21:26:00.000-08:002019-11-10T21:26:50.596-08:00November 10: A memorable day on the water<div style="text-align: justify;">
Things have been changing so much and so quickly in the Salish Sea; the transformations are astounding. When I first started spending time up here 20 years ago, both humpback and transient killer whales were rare sights. Now, they are around almost daily - even in November! With a friend up visiting for a long weekend, we headed out on the water with Maya's Legacy today and our sightings rivaled a good day during the "peak season" (whatever that is anymore!)</div>
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Early in the morning a report came in of the T18s near Orcas Island, and luckily they didn't travel too far too fast. We caught up with them at the west end of Spieden Channel, where they were first split into pairs with T18 Esperanza and T19 Spouter together, and T19 Mooyah and T19B Galiano about a mile further to the west.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NLulWn7oTBE/XcjtIrrGLgI/AAAAAAAATa4/Cvxl9H2GmrAxIIttE-TVNfiOIBkRDsJrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1462-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NLulWn7oTBE/XcjtIrrGLgI/AAAAAAAATa4/Cvxl9H2GmrAxIIttE-TVNfiOIBkRDsJrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1462-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">18 year-old male T19C Spouter</td></tr>
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A little while after we got there, the two groups merged and started making their way northwest up Haro. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jfJwjfXwWHc/XcjtrqLUtDI/AAAAAAAATbA/YefdDmSweFASSn9MWnT22CfOSO8BtfM_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1504-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jfJwjfXwWHc/XcjtrqLUtDI/AAAAAAAATbA/YefdDmSweFASSn9MWnT22CfOSO8BtfM_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1504-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right T19B Galiano, T18 Esperanza, and T19C Spouter</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
They were zig-zagging a bit, but their final surfacing before we left was perfectly lined up with the Turn Point l=Lighthouse. What a sight!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g3z_5RLVhjQ/XcjuYcRavtI/AAAAAAAATbI/eY7eW9npNvIODGNVIwMmn3-OXNliCp75ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1529-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g3z_5RLVhjQ/XcjuYcRavtI/AAAAAAAATbI/eY7eW9npNvIODGNVIwMmn3-OXNliCp75ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1529-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The T18s in front of the Turn Point Lighthouse</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
As we reversed course back through Spieden Channel we slowed down along Spieden Island. With its exotic wildlife, it rarely disappoints, but it was exceptional today. There were hundreds of Mouflon sheep, sika deer, and fallow deer out; more sika deer than I had ever seen, in fact!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YZFw3PKCM40/Xcju_qrQgpI/AAAAAAAATbQ/yYXLZHtiMsYP9Uvsm_0sXq-bG8HHX8VCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1542-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YZFw3PKCM40/Xcju_qrQgpI/AAAAAAAATbQ/yYXLZHtiMsYP9Uvsm_0sXq-bG8HHX8VCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1542-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sika deer buck</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's also rutting season, which means there's plenty of drama unfolding! This male was bleating at these two very unimpressed females.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n3v5_36bQto/XcjvPccBNiI/AAAAAAAATbU/8g-pK8k-SjoGVI423II7A-sBaSDz_tsTwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1552-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n3v5_36bQto/XcjvPccBNiI/AAAAAAAATbU/8g-pK8k-SjoGVI423II7A-sBaSDz_tsTwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1552-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Male fallow deer bleating</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
We were distracted from the exotic wildlife when we spotted a family of river otters running along the hillside! They darted down into the water but 7 of them tried to all climb out on this little rock at the same time, some of them sneaking a curious look at us as we looked at them. One of the collective nouns for a group of otters is a "romp", and watching them today, you could see why!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlL-IDrjBF8/XcjvjDpQApI/AAAAAAAATbg/T64mHFDC9Qw86wRBr2nNyxX8DHfs-TrbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1571-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlL-IDrjBF8/XcjvjDpQApI/AAAAAAAATbg/T64mHFDC9Qw86wRBr2nNyxX8DHfs-TrbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1571-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A romp of sea otters</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Down at Green Point there weren't any Steller sea lions hauled out, but there was a gang of them in the water. This one looks vicious in the photo, but he was just yawning.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qiqWx9VBBpg/Xcjv4-QR5XI/AAAAAAAATbo/D9pclPpTCCU1MnZ6SOdaEkR95xgtj7MbACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1574-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qiqWx9VBBpg/Xcjv4-QR5XI/AAAAAAAATbo/D9pclPpTCCU1MnZ6SOdaEkR95xgtj7MbACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1574-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
We only got a quick look at the sea lions, because just across San Juan Channel was a humpback whale! We were shaking our heads in bewilderment at so many sightings on a chilly November afternoon! It was <span class="st">BCY0160 known as Heather, who seemed to just be doing circles.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oWb6dEs58MQ/XcjwMKzpH1I/AAAAAAAATbw/xhk1WX66HLEZmsj6Fc8Ll8Ls0OwaxplswCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1594-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oWb6dEs58MQ/XcjwMKzpH1I/AAAAAAAATbw/xhk1WX66HLEZmsj6Fc8Ll8Ls0OwaxplswCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1594-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="st">BCY0160 Heather</span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="st">It was just a short ride back to Friday Harbor from there, but I kept my camera out anyway, and I was glad I did! Eight ancient murrelets were flying amazingly fast, keeping pace with us for about a minute!</span></div>
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<span class="st"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orizMRdUX6s/XcjwY7V_HnI/AAAAAAAATb0/HWALEmWkQFcGRQrH36qz_aSnyM0n5Hb4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_1617-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orizMRdUX6s/XcjwY7V_HnI/AAAAAAAATb0/HWALEmWkQFcGRQrH36qz_aSnyM0n5Hb4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_1617-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancient murrelets in San Juan Channel</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="st">By the end of the day, by my count, we had seen eight mammal species and about another dozen marine bird species - not too shabby!</span></div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-68389732565452324642019-11-02T16:46:00.001-07:002019-11-02T16:46:23.708-07:00Day of the Dead ~ 10th Annual Tribute<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), where every year I take a moment to remember the Southern Resident killer whales we've lost over the previous year. You can find all my previous Day of the Dead tributes <a href="http://www.orcawatcher.com/search/label/day%20of%20the%20dead" target="_blank">here</a>; it's hard to believe I've been doing this for a decade! I think it's so important to both remember the stories of the whales we've lost and to honor them; so many of them, both in life and in death, fuel our fight for a brighter future for this unique population of whales.<br />
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<b>J17 Princess Angeline</b><br />
<br />
J17 was one of the iconic whales of J-Pod from the very first day I met them, and it's still hard to picture J-Pod being without her, even after a season with her absent. With distinct saddle patches on both sides (one with a possible healed gunshot wound) and a distinct slope to her fin, she was one of the first whales I learned to identify. Her namesake was Chief Seattle's daughter.<br />
<b> </b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sYPjSLV5njE/Xb4EZNlSPAI/AAAAAAAATV0/VNs_bZLolkoefIIJt5TBTqxKpau2CPLTACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/J17%2B2005-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sYPjSLV5njE/Xb4EZNlSPAI/AAAAAAAATV0/VNs_bZLolkoefIIJt5TBTqxKpau2CPLTACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/J17%2B2005-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close pass from J17 at Lime Kiln in 2005</td></tr>
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For the first 10 years of my knowing her, her family group was made up of herself and her two daughters, J35 Tahlequah and J28 Polaris. I always thought of them as a curious and playful threesome with whom I had many memorable encounters over the years.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AP-_JSKqW70/Xb4EsZ3k91I/AAAAAAAATV8/fX2oNak8PqQ63o07xICKKOAd9X1tjb5JQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/J17s%2B2007-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AP-_JSKqW70/Xb4EsZ3k91I/AAAAAAAATV8/fX2oNak8PqQ63o07xICKKOAd9X1tjb5JQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/J17s%2B2007-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J17 as I knew her for a long time: flanked by her two daughters J28 Polaris and J35 Tahlequah, shown here in 2007.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1BLP2g3ZpNc/Xb4FdeiZsaI/AAAAAAAATWM/GrlGpQkfR0IVR5QpoqE6ZHXVSxC2Q4TxgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/J17%2Btail%2Bslap%2B2016-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1BLP2g3ZpNc/Xb4FdeiZsaI/AAAAAAAATWM/GrlGpQkfR0IVR5QpoqE6ZHXVSxC2Q4TxgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/J17%2Btail%2Bslap%2B2016-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J17 was always good for a cartwheel - this one in 2016</td></tr>
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It was such an exciting few months at the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010 when their family group doubled in size, with all three females having calves. First J17 gave birth to J44 Moby, followed by J28 giving birth to J46 Star and J35 giving birth to J47 Notch. I have one of those orca mobiles I bought at The Whale Museum many years ago, that has three females, each with a calf. Ever since this spate of births in their family group I have always thought of the mobile representing the J17s and their three little ones at the beginning of 2010. For J17, this was her first living calf in over a decade.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z-dT8MA1W9c/Xb4FTMIUdzI/AAAAAAAATWI/RHzjeDuMI0kHbA_W-s0kszoqGJzIpcPOACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/J17%2Bwith%2BJ44%2B2010-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z-dT8MA1W9c/Xb4FTMIUdzI/AAAAAAAATWI/RHzjeDuMI0kHbA_W-s0kszoqGJzIpcPOACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/J17%2Bwith%2BJ44%2B2010-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J17 with her son J44 Moby in 2010</td></tr>
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Five years later J17 became a mother again during the "baby boom" year, giving birth to another daughter, J53 Kiki. (Kiki's name also comes from Chief Seattle's daughter Princess Angeline, who was also known as Kikisoblu.) With J28 also having given birth again, for a brief time this family group was at its largest size with 7 whales: Princess Angeline as the matriarch, her three daughters (J28, J35, J53) and a son (J44), and two grand-offspring (J46 and J54).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-00anoORwiyw/Xb4Gz7dsVHI/AAAAAAAATWc/O5tWPBM5TvgV5bO5xnx1cOcbxSynhQP8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/J17%2Bwith%2BJ53%2B2016-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-00anoORwiyw/Xb4Gz7dsVHI/AAAAAAAATWc/O5tWPBM5TvgV5bO5xnx1cOcbxSynhQP8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/J17%2Bwith%2BJ53%2B2016-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J17 Princess Angeline and J53 Kiki - a photo I always felt was a symbol of hope for this population. Apparently others have felt the same, as the photo has since been used by Greenpeace, Oceana, and shared on social media by Leonardo DiCaprio.</td></tr>
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Sadly, before the end of 2016 the J17s were struck by tragedy, and it has followed them in the years since. First was the loss of both J28 and her son J54. Then last year was the infamous 17 day-vigil by J35 carrying her deceased calf, which undoubtedly took some type of toll on Princess Angeline herself, who was still a nursing mother at the time. Her body condition declined after giving birth to Kiki, and never recovered. By the end of 2018 she had "peanut head", and by summer of 2019, she did not return to inland waters with J-Pod.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6iJY2Ux_PAI/Xb4HeqHfR-I/AAAAAAAATWk/Zl9a4UHcUEsYvb4CYK8rbKZZ5MeKgAFmACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/J17%2B2019-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6iJY2Ux_PAI/Xb4HeqHfR-I/AAAAAAAATWk/Zl9a4UHcUEsYvb4CYK8rbKZZ5MeKgAFmACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/J17%2B2019-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My last photo of J17, taken in March 2019</td></tr>
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She's one of the most prolific Southern Resident mothers I have known, and the population is extra lucky that her family line seems to be able to produce a lot of healthy females, as there has been a male-bias sex-ratio into the population in the last couple decades. Because of these two facts, her legacy will hopefully be a long one. Despite the matriline having been fractured by recent deaths, her lineage could play a big role in the future and potential recovery of the Southern Residents in the future reproductive successes of J35 Tahlequah, J46 Star, and J53 Kiki. These three seem to be taking care of each other, too, as there was especial concern over Kiki, just 4 years old at the time of her mom's death. But in 2019 she has looked very robust, and has been spending a lot of time with both Tahlequah and Star, with Star having been observed sharing fish with her on several occasions.<br />
<br />
Princess Angeline was 42 at the time of her death. While she was likely at the end of her reproductive life, the loss of her as a grandmother will undoubtedly be felt. We've already seen her family group become less cohesive after her death, but we hope her descendants carry on her strong maternal skills and that the J17s again become a matriline of seven whales or more.<br /><br /><b>K25 Scoter</b><br />
<b><br /></b>Scoter was the eldest son of K13 Skagit and a true mama's boy, never far from her side. He's one of the first young males I got to watch grow up, but was notorious for his broad but relatively short dorsal fin.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6enGZnVv7ig/Xb4JQ3rorHI/AAAAAAAATWw/KYGGFsRu3vwvnf3Q9Y_USZpgEIwvVBgSACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/K25%2B2005-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6enGZnVv7ig/Xb4JQ3rorHI/AAAAAAAATWw/KYGGFsRu3vwvnf3Q9Y_USZpgEIwvVBgSACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/K25%2B2005-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K25 Scoter in 2005 at the age of 14. He was a real "late bloomer", with a shorter dorsal fin than most males his age.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bCLkeL-pOCM/Xb4LaneHuWI/AAAAAAAATXI/gzlxowkvxUIBj4PLsk-3SvpGpS0_OR8VwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/K25%2Bwith%2BK13%2B2015-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bCLkeL-pOCM/Xb4LaneHuWI/AAAAAAAATXI/gzlxowkvxUIBj4PLsk-3SvpGpS0_OR8VwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/K25%2Bwith%2BK13%2B2015-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K25 Scoter (with a much taller dorsal fin 10 years later in 2015) following close behind his mom K13 Skagit</td></tr>
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Scoter seemed to enjoy the years L87 Onyx spent with K-Pod, as Onyx was particularly associated with the K7 matriline. While Onyx associated a lot with K7 Lummi, Scoter's grandmother K11 Georgia, and K13 Skagit, the two young males were also regularly seen together.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nkcYN42KTiI/Xb4JrAXeE3I/AAAAAAAATW4/OM3hca_0ZUAhzUruWyCJnweZ7pPI1ckbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/K25%2Bwith%2BL87%2B2008-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nkcYN42KTiI/Xb4JrAXeE3I/AAAAAAAATW4/OM3hca_0ZUAhzUruWyCJnweZ7pPI1ckbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/K25%2Bwith%2BL87%2B2008-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K25 with L87 in 2008</td></tr>
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One of my most memorable encounters with Scoter happened in 2010 when I was aboard the Western Prince. We were parked and watching foraging whales when suddenly he appeared out of the depths right off our port side, carrying a salmon in his mouth. This sequence of photos remains the best I've ever taken of a Southern Resident with a salmon, and this photo was used in the book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1570619859/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1570619859&linkCode=as2&tag=orcawatc-20&linkId=fdba0489aea7e731160040dbd017dd83" target="_blank">Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest</a>.<br /><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3VAoWXgQZ7g/Xb4MT7eNTqI/AAAAAAAATXY/_rYRxXcb0dUxH0nyUtQuXGhE4okUXf-7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/K25%2Bwith%2Bsalmon%2B2010-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3VAoWXgQZ7g/Xb4MT7eNTqI/AAAAAAAATXY/_rYRxXcb0dUxH0nyUtQuXGhE4okUXf-7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/K25%2Bwith%2Bsalmon%2B2010-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Scoter was satellite tagged by NOAA at the end of 2012, and his tag transmitted for an impressive 97 days, supplying the first detailed insight into the winter movements of K-Pod. While we knew Ks and Ls spent a lot of time on the outer coast in the winter, occasionally making trips to California, for the first time we had daily or near-daily updates on where exactly the whales were and how they were using the outer coastal habitat. The data from Scoter's tag was key in finally getting the critical habitat for Southern Residents extended to include the outer coast, and I believe will also be key in demonstrating the continued importance of the Columbia-Snake River Basin to K and L Pods, as it showed how much time they spend near the mouth of the river. Unfortunately, part of the tag remained embedded in Scoter's dorsal fin, leading to an extensive tag re-design by NOAA, but leaving Scoter with a permanent scar for the rest of his life.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-40jngWvC7zs/Xb4LN4mjh5I/AAAAAAAATXE/Evqzo_TZ9HIW-0S0wENJN5tlnegPwXvXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/2012DEC29CKE_PS1_393.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-40jngWvC7zs/Xb4LN4mjh5I/AAAAAAAATXE/Evqzo_TZ9HIW-0S0wENJN5tlnegPwXvXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/2012DEC29CKE_PS1_393.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K25 with satellite tag in December 2012 - Photo by NOAA</td></tr>
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When his mom died in 2017, we knew K25 was an "at risk" whale. Adult males often perish shortly after their mothers, and with his strongest female associates being his two sisters who already had offspring of their own, Scoter was a perfect example of the social context playing such a key role in an individual Southern Resident's prospects for survival. Like J17, Scoter was observed with "peanut head" by the end of 2018, and failed to return with his family group when Js and Ks finally returned to inland waters in July 2019.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SouVJzwzdrY/Xb4NdP8xJnI/AAAAAAAATXk/oBf9k7XMAtgLpBedJvJcpqMJ75Q4nQSVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_0339-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SouVJzwzdrY/Xb4NdP8xJnI/AAAAAAAATXk/oBf9k7XMAtgLpBedJvJcpqMJ75Q4nQSVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_0339-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My last photo of Scoter, taken September 2018</td></tr>
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Scoter was 28 at the time of his death. He leaves behind a brother (K34), two sisters (K20 and K27), and two nephews (K38 and K44). The K13s spent so much time in inland waters over the years that I feel like I've gotten to know them as well as I know J-Pod. His one-of-a-kind dorsal fin will be missed, as there is truly no other whale quite like Scoter.</div>
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<b>L84 Nyssa</b></div>
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Nyssa was part of the so-called "back page whales", the portion of L-Pod who traditionally appeared on the last page of the Center for Whale Research ID guides and also spent the least amount of time in inland waters of any of the Southern Residents. Despite rarely visiting the Salish Sea, he was one of the easiest of all Southern Residents to identify with a single large notch, a bold check-marked shape saddle on the left, and finger marking on his right side saddle patch. He was often the first whale from this elusive group of whales I would ID, leading me to exclaim, "The back page Ls are here!"</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mre7owTKYSs/Xb4OrqgvahI/AAAAAAAATXw/ztsYf77qWNYD83x-UVxpewhLHPfQp8MrgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/L84%2B2016-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="847" data-original-width="1280" height="263" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mre7owTKYSs/Xb4OrqgvahI/AAAAAAAATXw/ztsYf77qWNYD83x-UVxpewhLHPfQp8MrgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/L84%2B2016-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L84 off San Juan County Park in 2016</td></tr>
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When I first met Nyssa in 2000, he had just lost his mother L51 Nootka the year before. Her body washed ashore near Victoria in September 1999 and she had a prolapsed uterus, having recently given birth to L97 Tweak. Being a neonate, Tweak had virtually no prospects for survival, but his/her big brother Nyssa along with L74 Saanich were seen trying to take care of and feed the little calf in the days after Nootka's death. They were not successful, but Nyssa maintained a close relationship with his closing living relatives in his uncle Saanich and great uncle L73 Flash over the next decade.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rcINq2fUmsQ/Xb4Ps1fbxZI/AAAAAAAATX8/dfpmXY42en879g_-2PyVsgb_wHEPd9V4ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/L84%2Bwith%2BL73%2Bin%2B2007-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rcINq2fUmsQ/Xb4Ps1fbxZI/AAAAAAAATX8/dfpmXY42en879g_-2PyVsgb_wHEPd9V4ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/L84%2Bwith%2BL73%2Bin%2B2007-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L84 Nyssa (right) with L73 Flash in 2007</td></tr>
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The 2000s have not been kind to the "back page" Ls. Since 2012, Nyssa has been the last living member of the L9 matriline, one doomed to extinction after his mother died leaving no females capable of reproduction. He beat the odds and continued to survive by finding a surrogate mother figure in the living matriarch of the other "back page" matriline, L54 Ino, who took in both Nyssa and another orphaned male L88 Wavewalker. Despite the fact these whales have such strong matrilineal ties, these whales collectively taught me that they will "create" their own families if need be, making a matriline of their own when their direct relations have died out. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7nT3zFbJcOk/Xb4Q6HgPrlI/AAAAAAAATYI/dNLDo9jp3xoY_eDvgneN5EK7VaWDgCVLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/L84%2BCWR%2B2015-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7nT3zFbJcOk/Xb4Q6HgPrlI/AAAAAAAATYI/dNLDo9jp3xoY_eDvgneN5EK7VaWDgCVLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/L84%2BCWR%2B2015-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L84 Nyssa with Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research in 2015</td></tr>
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My most memorable encounter with Nyssa happened in November 2014. My friend Julie and I had just bought our first boat <i>Serenity</i> a couple weeks prior. We weren't confident enough to take it far off the dock and thought for sure we would have to wait until spring to have our boat "christened" by an encounter with orcas. When word came in of members of all three pods milling off Kellett Bluffs, however, it was too great of a chance to passed up, and despite the choppy sea conditions we braved heading out as far as we had yet gone to see whales.</div>
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The whales were very spread doing long dives with unpredictable surfacings, and it was very fitting that the first whale to come close enough for us to identify was J2 Granny. We tell the story that Granny christened our boat (and our fledgling research efforts at the Orca Behavior Institute), but the part of the story that doesn't often get told is that on that day Granny was traveling with L84 Nyssa. Truly, he was part of the christening as well, which is also fitting, since his story gives us so many different glimpses into the social complexity of the Southern Residents that fuels all of our research questions at OBI. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KeNPVJG3D8k/Xb4RuoMw3BI/AAAAAAAATYU/YrpvXCZ-1cU9iMFPYneNlYG9UyoxM8D9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/L84%2BSerenity%2B2014-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KeNPVJG3D8k/Xb4RuoMw3BI/AAAAAAAATYU/YrpvXCZ-1cU9iMFPYneNlYG9UyoxM8D9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/L84%2BSerenity%2B2014-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nyssa on the day he and Granny christened out boat <i>Serenity</i> in 2014, with Lime Kiln lighthouse in the background</td></tr>
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While both J17 and K25 had look malnourished in the months preceding their deaths, Nyssa's loss came as more of a surprise, as he had appeared to be in good health in recent encounters. A unique whale til the end, even the announcement of his death was unusual in that the Center for Whale Research declared him missing before they had ever encountered L-Pod in 2019, basing their announcement off photos provided by others on the outer coast. Sadly, it would true to be accurate, as Nyssa failed to return to inland waters with the L54s and L88 when they did finally make a rare visit to the Salish Sea in September. Nyssa was 29 at the time of his death. As the last living member of the L9 matriline, he leaves behind no living relatives and with his death leads to one of the several impending matriline extinctions within L-Pod.<br /><br /><b>New Additions</b></div>
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<b><br /></b>Since it's a bittersweet process to remember the whales we have lost (one from each pod this year), I traditionally end these posts with a nod of welcome to the newest members of the Southern Resident Community as well. In 2017 and 2018 there were sadly no whales to welcome, but thankfully this year we have had two new little ones born to help spark some hope among the continued losses.<br /><br />One of them is L124 Whistle, the third offspring of L77 Matia. In a likely first, this little whale was first identified by helicopter, when a local news time broadcast footage of the Southern Residents in Puget Sound back in January. There had been no calves born since 2016, so it was clear this was a "new" whale, too tiny to be any of the others! Incredibly, Whistle's natal group (the L12s) has not been confirmed in inland waters since the end of February, so I have yet to meet this little whale! The L12s used to spend so much time here, and I hope in 2020 they do again so I can meet this little guy before he gets too big!<br /><br />The other new addition is even sweeter, being a female calf born to J31 Tsuchi in May. Tsuchi has always loved spending time with calves, but her first in 2016 was stillborn. Fortunately, this pregnancy was successful, and it has sure seemed like we humans aren't the only ones excited to welcome J56 Tofino, as J31 and her rambunctious baby have spent time with whales from many other matrilines, and it truly seems as though all of J-Pod is enamored with this little calf. Thankfully both mom and baby appear robust and energetic, and we hope this is just the beginning of a long life of successful motherhood for Tsuchi.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tv4phY38Iv4/Xb4VHEmUxhI/AAAAAAAATYg/l_wV7v-v4fAwbiFuPEqRZ3wFPVnnge60gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DSC_7601-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tv4phY38Iv4/Xb4VHEmUxhI/AAAAAAAATYg/l_wV7v-v4fAwbiFuPEqRZ3wFPVnnge60gCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/DSC_7601-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my all-time favorite whale photos (and that's saying something!): J31 Tsuchi with J56 Tofino in the foreground and J47 Notch behind, taken in August 2019.</td></tr>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-91714922543248191242019-10-26T16:32:00.001-07:002019-10-26T16:32:52.268-07:00Fall in the San Juan Islands<div style="text-align: justify;">
With all the education and advocacy efforts that I'm involved in year round now, there no longer seems to be a "slow season" to my year. Even as the days start to get shorter in the late autumn and fall and the whales around a bit less, there's plenty to do with writing articles and public comments and giving presentations, plus continuing to do book talks and other work with the Orca Behavior Institute. Regardless of the time of year, however, it's so important to me to regularly make some time to get out into nature with my camera, whether it be on the water or on land. And regardless of the time of year, there is so much to see and observe in the Salish Sea. Here are some highlights from the last six weeks or so.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bald eagle in Spieden Channel</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D3Fzx1PNwcM/XbTWW8qkepI/AAAAAAAATUg/TLDIOitM2YwTlle5boTiUS9iBdYVETHQgCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_0637-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D3Fzx1PNwcM/XbTWW8qkepI/AAAAAAAATUg/TLDIOitM2YwTlle5boTiUS9iBdYVETHQgCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_0637-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ollie the sea otter at Race Rocks in the Strait of Juan de Fuca</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ab2ruIhabyc/XbTWWvDcPbI/AAAAAAAATUc/EUTeLUgDe-skI2GeF0dzb2LsPwPp6VsawCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_0758.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ab2ruIhabyc/XbTWWvDcPbI/AAAAAAAATUc/EUTeLUgDe-skI2GeF0dzb2LsPwPp6VsawCEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_0758.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking UP at the T46Bs in big swells in the Strait of Juan de Fuca</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laplong longspur - a life bird! - at American Camp</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close visit from a great blue heron at Land Bank's Westside Preserve</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--6ME5J3TbXg/XbTWYAFlT3I/AAAAAAAATUs/V_b4nziIiKUe3sZd713k-7y70yEHbX4CACEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_0979%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--6ME5J3TbXg/XbTWYAFlT3I/AAAAAAAATUs/V_b4nziIiKUe3sZd713k-7y70yEHbX4CACEwYBhgL/s400/DSC_0979%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K33 Tika off the west side of San Juan Island</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K34 Cali off Eagle Point with the Olympic Mountains in the background</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the many hairy woodpeckers that visits our feeders year-round</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trumpet lichen, Cladonia spp.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tiny mushrooms in the yard</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gorgeous fall colors everywhere this year!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bonaparte's gull in Mosquito Pass</td></tr>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-83249433252376690972019-09-14T12:18:00.000-07:002019-09-14T12:18:09.641-07:00Northern Vancouver Island Part 2: A Whale Watch to Remember<div style="text-align: justify;">
On September 4th we headed out on a whale watch out of Telegraph Cove, and with lots of recent whale reports and flat-calm waters I was hopeful for a great trip. Now I have been on a lot of whale watch trips over the years, both while traveling, while working as a naturalist for 6 years, and while riding along with friends from here on San Juan Island. In terms of wildlife and whale encounters, there have been some pretty great trips, but this one definitely ranks among the top few that I have ever experienced. Over the course of just three hours we saw transients, Northern Residents, humpback whales, Pacific white-sided dolphins, Dall's porpoise, and Steller sea lions!</div>
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As we headed out of the harbor we were making our way down Johnstone Strait towards a report of Northern Residents when I spotted a small killer whales along the shoreline across the strait. (This would actually be one of three times on this trip I found killer whales with no reports or other indication that they were in the area! While I often go out looking for whales, it's usually following up on another sighting, and it has been years since I spotted whales totally unexpectedly. For it to happen three times on this single trip to Vancouver Island was crazy!)</div>
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This trio of orcas turned out to be the T69Ds, who are rare visitors to the Salish Sea but who I coincidentally met for the first time earlier this year when they were with the T90s in Haro Strait back in February. As would be the case for all the transients we encountered while up north, their behavior was quite different than we typically see today from Ts around the San Juan Islands, and more like what they used to be like 10-20 years ago: long dives with sporadic/unpredictable surfacings, making them hard to track and view. After one dive, however, they unexpectedly popped up close to the boat, giving us a nice look after a lot of patiently scanning the water.</div>
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By this time the Northern Residents were within sight to the south of us, and the T69Ds had likely heard them as well, because they did a 180 to head back in the direction they came and we continued on our way towards the Residents. We had heard the whales were spread out in ones and twos doing long foraging dives, but we got on scene, several of the small groups merged, and we were treated to an amazing sight of 15+ whales traveling in a tight group and surfacing all together.</div>
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I would later learn these were the I4s, I65s, and G27s - all new-to-me whales - and just a fraction of the whales who were "in" that day. Also around (and some of whom we got distant looks of) were at least the A42s, I16s, I27s, and I35s.</div>
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We used to the Southern Residents like this more often, though in recent years they tend to spread out a lot more. It was hard not to keep taking photos, as regardless of how much you see it, that many dorsal fins at the surface together is a breath-taking sight.</div>
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The whales split into two groups as we followed them around the eastern side of Hanson Island:</div>
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We had the light against us when viewing the whales from the left side, and my Northern Resident ID guide only shows left sides, so it was tough to piece together many individual IDs. The only adult male in the group was 22 year-old male I76, seen here with another sprouter - maybe I122?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I76 on the left</td></tr>
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If you follow orcas in the region, you know about the iconic Orca Lab on Hanson Island - it was pretty cool to get to see Northern Residents go by there!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Northern Residents passing Orca Lab</td></tr>
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We left the Northern Residents heading west through Blackfish Sound and went north through the narrow passage between Swanson and Crease Islands. No matter which way you turn up there, the scenery is awesome! There are so many little islands and channels to explore.</div>
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Next up we spent some time with some humpbacks, with easily half a dozen or more individuals spread out in the same area.</div>
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As we slowly started transiting back towards Telegraph Cove, it was a scene I will never forget. The Northern Residents were back in view, there were still humpbacks in every direction, and some Pacific white-sided dolphins came by as well. I felt like I was dreaming, with multiple species of cetacean surrounding us. </div>
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It was an unforgettable whale watch, and we returned to the dock beaming, immediately making plans to go out on the water again before the end of our trip. I made a conscious effort to try and lock the scene and the emotion inside me - the joy, the excitement, the peace of being in such a place and having such an experience. You can't bottle it, but it's moments like those that rejuvenate the spirit and keep you going through things like whale politics, dreary winter days, and stressful times at work.</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-42493640988620673202019-09-07T08:44:00.000-07:002019-09-07T08:44:14.742-07:00Northern Vancouver Island Part 1: Grizzlies and Waterfalls<div style="text-align: justify;">
The first week of September has been marked off all year as a reset, recharge, and rejuvenate week spent on northern Vancouver Island. With various stresses having built up over the preceding months, it couldn't have come at a better time. As our departure date approached I decided to unplug for the trip as well - no e-mail, phone, or social media. We didn't have much planned other than lodging, and we left open to whatever adventures awaited us. </div>
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On a whim we decided to splurge on a tour to Bute Inlet to look for grizzly bears. The day dawned in classic Pacific Northwest style: with steady rain. Luckily the fog lifted as we headed out, and the scenery on the two hour boat ride to Orford Bay was beautiful.</div>
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As we arrived for the land-based portion of our tour we were welcomed to traditional Homalco lands by our First Nations hosts. We didn't even have to leave the dock to see our first two grizzly bears meandering around the estuary at low tide. We headed over to an observation tour to get a better look.</div>
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Over the next couple of hours we got to see a total of six grizzlies, the highlight of which was this one that hopped up on a log in close proximity (seen from the safety of our vehicle).</div>
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Equally amazing to seeing the bears was not only being in such a remote area, but hearing stories from our Homalco guides who are working to reconnect their youth to their traditional lands and culture. The rain continued to fall as we viewed bears, but luckily the sun broke through shortly before we left.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The stunning view from land at Orford Bay as the sun broke through</td></tr>
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The highlight of the trip may have actually been the boat ride back to Vancouver Island on glassy seas with stunning scenery around every corner, even more awesome than in the morning with the late afternoon light. We sat on the top dock of the boat the whole way and soaked it all in.</div>
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We even got to stop and take a look at a three year-old humpback named Linea, who is the 2016 calf of BCY0027 Maude.</div>
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One more photo of the Cape Mudge Lighthouse as we headed back to port at sunset:</div>
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The next day we headed inland to Strathcona Provincial Park to check out several waterfalls. As would be the theme for the trip, it was another scenic drive.<br />
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The highlight of the day was climbing on the rocks around Myra Falls:<br />
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Next up, it was time to head further north, with plenty more wildlife to come....</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-30480237483571593852019-07-10T17:38:00.001-07:002019-07-10T17:40:58.222-07:00July 5: Return of the Residents<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well, my aforementioned blog post about an epic Bigg's killer whale encounter will have to wait, because on July 5, after 59 days of waiting, the Southern Residents finally returned to the inland waters! Specifically, it was all of J- and K-Pods, along with L87 Onyx who has traveled with J-Pod for years.</div>
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The text message came in early that there were Southern Resident vocalizations being heard on the Lime Kiln hydrophones. By the time we got to the west side, we had missed them at Lime Kiln, but caught up with them heading north from San Juan County Park. After months of viewing only Bigg's killer whales, just the energy of viewing the Southern Residents was noticeably different - the way they travel and surface is <i>different</i>.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They're back!!</td></tr>
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While most of them were a way's offshore, J16 Slick, J26 Mike, and J36 Alki came inside of Low Island and through the kelp beds.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J26 Mike swimming through a kelp bed off San Juan County Park</td></tr>
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Luckily for us, the whales stalled out just north of County Park, and soon it became apparent they were heading back south. As we dashed to the car to head to Lime Kiln, we were all wondering if it would be a "westside shuffle" kind of day - where the whales go back and forth along the west side of San Juan Island all day long, something they used to do a lot of. The answer was yes, it would be that kind of day!</div>
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By the time they reached Lime Kiln the whales had picked up speed.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nothing quite like seeing whales aiming right at you, let alone porpoising right at you!</td></tr>
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Suddenly among the lead group up popped a very tiny killer whale - the new calf, J56! With the Center for Whale Research getting to encounter this new little one for the first time, they confirmed not only that the mother is J31 Tsuchi (who lost a neonate in early 2016), but that the new calf is a female. Yay!!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first photo of little J56 next to mom J31 Tsuchi</td></tr>
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When the whales return, it truly feels like greeting old friends. I've known most of these whales longer than I've known most of the important people in my life today! Here is K26 Lobo, who along with the rest of K-Pod hadn't been seen in inland waters (or anywhere else) for an astonishing 6 months since they were in Puget Sound in mid-January.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K26 Lobo</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right: J37 Hy'shqa, K14 Lea, and K36 Yoda</td></tr>
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One thing that was really noticeable was how big all the young K-Pod males have gotten! Clearly they've been growing over the winter, including K33 Tika, who I like to call the shapeshifter, because over the years I've mistaken him for just about every other male in K-Pod and several in other pods. He just looks so different depending on what angle you see him at!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K33 Tika</td></tr>
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A couple hours later, the whales were heading back north up the west side of San Juan Island again. First, they stalled out and flipped at Land Bank, but then came up as far as Lime Kiln, where we had again, along with may others, gathered on the rocks. For a short time, everything else faded away: the long absence of the Southern Residents, the task force meetings, the political wheeling and dealing, the marathon legislative session, the worry, the fear, the anger....for a short time, it felt like the good ol' days, hanging on the rocks at Lime Kiln with Js and Ks going back and forth in the kelp. It felt like a breath of fresh air.</div>
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If you'll permit me a moment to anthropomorphize, the whales seemed just as happy to be back as we were to have them back. While there was a lot of laughter, smiles, hugs, and tears among the human whale community, there were just as many spyhops, breaches, surface rolls, and swims through the kelp fronds among the cetacean whale community.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rolling through the kelp just a few yards off the rocks at Lime Kiln</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spyhop from J49 T'ilem I'nges</td></tr>
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As with any social party, the family and friends were all mixed up and interacting with one another.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right: K43 Saturna, J51 Nova, and J41 Eclipse</td></tr>
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Our <a href="https://orcabehaviorinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Orca Behavior Institute</a> intern Greg, who luckily only had to wait 5 days after his arrival to meet the Southern Residents for the very time, got doubly lucky with this incredibly close encounter on his first day with Js and Ks:</div>
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And he was far from the only one that day to have an exceptionally close encounter!</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QfLumFKrFbc/XSZ_DrjRWLI/AAAAAAAATLY/sHzAHDq9fZY-jgbvw5s2PvWEPN3vTESjgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_4817-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QfLumFKrFbc/XSZ_DrjRWLI/AAAAAAAATLY/sHzAHDq9fZY-jgbvw5s2PvWEPN3vTESjgCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_4817-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Our friend Jim Maya also captured this shot from a little further south along the shoreline, looking north towards Lime Kiln. You may have to click to see the larger view, but check out the two whales front and center in the photo and right off the rocks! (I'm the one in the turquoise coat on the left!)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Maya photo taken from Land Bank, looking towards Lime Kiln</td></tr>
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Overall I thought the whales looked pretty robust, as if they had indeed found a more reliable source of food elsewhere, as the Fraser River spring Chinook runs have clearly failed them in April-June, leading to their uncharacteristic and extended absences.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J47 Notch</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">K44 Ripple</td></tr>
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Once again the whales got just about as far as the lighthouse when they slowly turned, and made their way past all of us on shore one more time!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L87 Onyx</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A killer whale draping a long strand of kelp of its tail flukes</td></tr>
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It was a very surreal day. Not only was I literally dreaming about J-Pod when I woke up to the message they were here, so that the whole day almost felt like an extension of the dream, but as a researcher who was viewing them but was not on the water with them I suddenly found myself bombarded with media requests to report on their return. In addition to several live spots on radio broadcasts, another interview turned into this article in the Globe and Mail which I thought did a solid job of summarizing the real issues: "<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-researchers-encouraged-by-return-of-killer-whales-to-salish-sea-but/" target="_blank">Researchers encouraged by return of killer whales to the Salish Sea, but say food source must be replenished</a>" </div>
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You can also check out my one minute video of this memorable Lime Kiln encounter here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/orcabehavior/videos/2333551786861546/" target="_blank">Js and Ks at Lime Kiln on July 5th</a>. <br />
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The whales went back south, but then slowly came north again, seen off Lime Kiln by others around sunset and then vocal on the hydrophones until after midnight. The following morning, July 6, they went through Active Pass at sunrise, and I assumed that meant we wouldn't see them until the following day at the earliest, as they usually spend some time up there. Surprisingly, they instead made their way rapidly back south, passing Lime Kiln again at 2:30 in the afternoon.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J31 Tsuchi and ~2 month old J56 heading south past Lime Kiln on July 6</td></tr>
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That evening we spent several hours at Land Bank hoping for a repeat sunset appearance like the night before, but while we did see some faint blows in the distance, they never made it quite up to where we sat on the shoreline. Indeed, as their quick turnaround from the Fraser River foreshadowed, the next day they were again heading west out the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards the open ocean. It sure seems like they are finding a better food source out there, rather than in what has traditionally been their home waters this time of year in and around the San Juan Islands.</div>
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It all comes down to prey. The Bigg's killer whales are here in ever-greater numbers every year, while 2019 gave us the first June on record without the Southern Residents here in the Salish Sea at all. Not that long ago, at least some of the Southern Residents were here on a near-daily basis throughout the month of June. The Bigg's have an abundant supply of seals, sea lions, and porpoises to feed on here. The Fraser River is no longer providing a big enough or reliable enough source of Chinook salmon to the Southern Residents to keep them visiting what we call their core summer habitat on a regular basis. The data speaks for itself.</div>
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Another cloud over the visit of the Southern Residents was the apparent absence of both K25 Scoter and J17 Princess Angeline, two whales who looked visibly malnourished last fall and winter. While not altogether surprising, the loss of these two whales definitely hurts - not only us human admirers, but of course to their immediate families too, and to the Southern Resident population as a whole. A bittersweet sighting I had was of J53 Kiki, Princess Angeline's 3 year old daughter, swimming next to her big sister J35 Tahlequah. Over the last two and a half years, Tahlequah has lost her sister J28 Polaris, her nephew J54 Dipper, her newborn daughter which she carried with her for 17 days last summer, and now seemingly her mother J17 Princess Angeline. The cumulative grief is hard to imagine, and equally hard to imagine is little J53 Kiki having to find her way without her mom.</div>
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But here are two sisters - one who lost a daughter, and one who lost a mom - and perhaps in each other they will find both solace and a way to survive.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J53 Kiki swimming in the slipstream of her big sister, J35 Tahlequah</td></tr>
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Indeed, it is in their perseverance and joie de vivre that I continue to find hope. While I trust them to do what they need to do in order to find enough food, I will eagerly await the next moment they can spare to visit the Salish Sea, where I hope to continue to meet them right off the rocks at Lime Kiln for many, many years to come.</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-24272249372739224532019-07-04T18:55:00.000-07:002019-07-04T18:55:26.066-07:00June: A Month Full of Bigg's Killer Whale Encounters<div style="text-align: justify;">
It still feels very surreal that we've just had our first June on record with no Southern Resident killer whales in inland waters. June used to be a highlight of the year because of the abundance of sightings of all three pods on the west side of San Juan Island. Yet here we are, 58 days without any of them in the Salish Sea. The silence created by their absence is deafening.</div>
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It's been an interesting process to hold on to that loss and that grief while simultaneously celebrating and reveling in the mammal-eating transient or Bigg's killer whales, which continue to set records year after year for their presence in the inland waters. It's equally bizarre to think I was here for years before I ever met any of them, and now I'm beginning to know them as families and individuals, too. The encounters I've head with them over the last month or so have been awesome - though there have been multiple occasions where I've had an unexpected moment of heartache when I think to myself, "The Southern Residents used to do this": a large group of whales swimming spread out up Swanson Channel. An early morning report of vocals on the Lime Kiln hydrophone and a surprise close pass of a tail-slapping whale through the kelp. Getting off work and watching two mothers with calves round Edwards Point and swim past Land Bank. I never thought I would see Bigg's killer whales doing those things.</div>
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I've been negligent in posting my sightings and photos here, so this post will serve as a quick recap to share a few memorable moments leading up to my next installment about an encounter that deserves its own post.</div>
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<b>June 6 - The T65Bs and T137s in San Juan Channel</b></div>
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<b>June 11 - The T49As in Wasp Passage</b></div>
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Having our boat in a new location this year has meant whale encounters in new locations, and Wasp Passage between Orcas and Shaw Islands has quickly become a new favorite spot to see whales.</div>
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We even got to see the T49As go through narrow Pole Pass, a channel between Orcas and Crane Islands about 250 feet across and 12 feet deep at low tide. Fun fact: apparently it's so named because, as the story goes, Native Americans would stretch fish nets on poles across the pass to catch migratory waterfowl.</div>
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<b>June 12 - The T123s pass Friday Harbor</b></div>
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I lucked out with a close surfacing by the whole family from my shore-based perch.</div>
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<b>June 20 - The T46s and T46Bs in Swanson Channel</b></div>
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On this truly memorable evening we headed out with some friends aboard a Maya's Legacy trip out of Snug Harbor. While there was another whale report in the area, we stopped to scan where an additional group of whales had briefly been spotted a short time before. We stopped several times and looked in all directions, but didn't see or hear anything. Then our captain caught sight of a fin 2 miles away, and it turned out to be a group of 13 whales that had gone undetected all day!</div>
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The two family groups were the T46s and T46Bs, such a storied group they deserve a longer treatment at some point, but this day it was all about getting to meet T46B1B, a little calf nicknamed Tl'uk ("Moon" in the Bella Coola Coast Salish language) who has made headlines for his very pale appearance.</div>
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He had periodically been around for a couple of weeks, but it was my first time meeting him, and I was very excited! <span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption">We
can't say for sure what is causing him to look so light. He's not
albino (he doesn't have red eyes), but other conditions are difficult to
assess without genetic samplin<span class="text_exposed_show">g. Some
are calling him leucistic (a condition that prevents pigments from
functioning properly), but it's also possible he has another genetic
condition called Chédiak–Higashi syndrome. Some whales who have looked this way haven't lived very long, while others have darkened up with age. One thing that's really striking about this little guy is just how different he looks in various lighting conditions - sometimes almost white, and other times just a shade of dark gray instead of black!</span></span></span></div>
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<span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show"><b>June 21 - The T75Bs and T75Cs at Land Bank</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show">Following this last one I would go a week before having another whale sighting, but it turned out to be well worth the wait! Stay tuned....</span></span></span></div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-52604764586889146652019-06-03T21:30:00.001-07:002019-06-04T14:58:14.668-07:00Year 2 of Orca Task Force: June 3 Meeting<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today I attended the second meeting of year two for Governor Inslee's Orca Task Force. The first meeting of 2019, which occurred in March and which I was unable to attend, happened when most of the Year 1 recommendations were still in limbo during the legislative process. The topic of that meeting was primarily climate change and how it impacts regional orca and salmon recovery. Specifically, for each of the working groups:</div>
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<i>Prey - Impacts of climate change will determine which habitats are most effective to restore</i></div>
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<i>Vessels - Emissions, and carbon neutrality issues</i></div>
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<i>Toxins - Which impacts will be amplified, such as new toxin sources being submerged</i><br />
There will be a report from each of the working groups on these topics at the September meeting.</div>
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The meeting started off with a quick recap from a subcommittee considering ways to carry the work of the task force beyond the end of this year. They have several options on the table that the task force will be taking a survey about in the coming months, and which will be discussed in more detail at the next meeting in September.</div>
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Next, JT Austin of the governor's office gave a recap of tribal involvement, and defined how true consultation and government to government relations work. With many tribes represented at the table, this seemed like something that definitely should have happened at the beginning of Year 1. The Orca Task Force does not represent official consultation, and the tribes have different rights, authorities, and interests than other groups at the table. I recall many of the tribal representatives abstained from voting on the year one recommendations, deferring to their direct government to government conversations with Inslee and the state. It will be interesting to see how that plays out over the rest of the task force process.<br />
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GI James of the Lummi tribe spoke next, and set the tone for the whole day - truly, for the whole cause. Here are some excerpts and summaries of what he said: "We are in a crisis....we cannot be planning for 50 years out." He pointed out that legislators need to be clear that the consequences of saying "no" to recovery actions are extinction. This is not a matter of picking and choosing items off a list based on what's politically expedient. "I'm glad this process is happening," he said, "but it needs a much, much greater emphasis on crisis."<br />
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He proposed that a crisis management team be formed to propose a measurable, needed, and funded crisis management plan. "It's a tough, hard set of decisions that need to be made....around this table are inherent conflicts of interest that make it tough to make those decisions. We still think we can have it all.....There's a really tough road ahead, and as much as I appreciate the 36 recommendations [from Year One], most of them are not meaningful actions." He got a loud round of applause after his comments.</div>
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Next was a recap of the legislative process and where all the 36 recommendations are currently, with a scorecard based on input from the working groups. Green = on track, yellow = in progress/more work needed, red = no action taken. You can read the scorecard from Team BOLD (Whitney Neugebauer of Whale Scout, Cindy Hansen from Orca Network, myself from the Orca Behavior Institute, and Susan Marie Andersson of Salish Sea Ecosystem Advocates) <a href="https://indd.adobe.com/view/a7a9517d-61db-416e-8ea9-9ead0dc8a457" target="_blank">here</a>; needless to say our rankings were a little different from theirs! One difference was they had 5 actions ranked red; we had 9. We gave status updates on our scorecard of where each action stood, but below are a few additional things I learned today:</div>
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<i><b>Less than 10% of identified salmon habitat restoration projects in the state were funded</b></i>. While it's great some projects are moving forward, there are A LOT of shovel ready projects that are awaiting money. In the presentation given today, they claimed Recommendation 1 as a "green/yellow" score. Jacques White of Long Live the Kings chimed in to say, given the huge shortfall from the goal of "fully funding" salmon habitat restoration projects, "I would say Recommendation 1 is a red."<br />
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Recommendation 6, regarding increased hatchery production, needs to have appropriate monitoring in place in 3-5 years to assess the impacts of this increased production. It was emphasized that wild fish are the long term goal, and we don't want to undermine the efforts to restore wild fish by flooding the system with hatchery fish.</div>
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There was a brief update on Recommendation 9 regarding the formation of the Lower Snake River dam stakeholder panel. The executive team is having a meeting later this week regarding finding a neutral third party to facilitate this process, and to discuss options of how the process will work. Rather than being an extended series of meetings, one option is for part of the process to have a neutral third party gather the existing information from all stakeholders, and summarize that information. It was made clear that the panel itself is not a study, nor is it a decision making process. It's goal is to discuss what the impacts would be if the current ongoing federal process does recommend dam breaching.</div>
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Recommendations 12 and 13, regarding pinniped control in Puget Sound and on the outer coast, did not get funded in the legislative process, which means that some of the ongoing studies in this area have lost funding. Someone pointed out that not having funding doesn't mean this issue goes away, and numerous task force members expressed an interest in continuing to explore the impact of pinnipeds on salmon, pointing out that it didn't necessarily mean the conclusion was going to be culling.</div>
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On Recommendation 22, relating to coordinating with Canada and/or coming up with a similar program to the ECHO ship slowdown efforts, there is in fact a meeting scheduled for the fall to come up with a plan for Washington State to do something similar in its waters, slowing down shipping traffic, cruise ships, and/or ferries in certain areas. (We also learned later the Canadian Haro Strait trial slow down area will extend into Boundary Pass this year.) Yay!<br />
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Regarding Recommendation 31 related to stormwater prevention and cleanup, a lot of funding was passed for this action, which is great. But it was pointed out this is only half the battle; we can't just throw money at the issue, but it needs to be targeted to hotspots where cleanups will have the biggest impacts. Luckily it sounds like the toxins working group is motivated to engage on this.<br />
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In the "fishbowl" discussion that followed, where the task force members could discuss the update on where the year one recommendations stood and identify gaps or make suggestions, Jacques White of Long Live the Kings took the mic first, and made good use of his time. "What is the relationship between the year one action items and killer whale recovery?" he asked. "If all the dots were green, would that get us 100% of the way to recovery?....All the yellow dots indicate we are not responding to a crisis." This is SUCH a key point. All of these actions are getting debated but there has been no attempt to quantify what their impact might be and how that relates to stated recovery goals. </div>
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He continued to point out that we did great on policy issues in the last legislative session, passing perhaps the best suite of environmental laws in the state since the 1970s. But "we have chronically underfunded salmon recovery for ten years", and he feels relying on a biennial budget from the legislature that competes with other societal needs is not going to generate the needed funds. This underscored a common theme that a steady source of dedicated funding for salmon recovery is needed. </div>
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A few moments later Joe Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society took the mic, again echoing many of our sentiments: "If we don't put fish into the mouths of these whales, we will not succeed....are these actions enough to bring back enough salmon?" He seconded Jacques' request for some modeling efforts to look at the impact of the ongoing actions because, "I don't want to wait 10 years to realize we've failed."<br />
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The meeting was briefly interrupted by three minutes of sirens relating to some drill for the city of Puyallup, but it seemed someone appropriate given all the talk in the morning of "crisis". Before the lunch break, Joe finished his statement with a "mic drop" worthy comment: "A scientist saying we need more science is like a barber saying you need a haircut, but if we don't take a look and analyze this, next time we will hear a lot more than 3 minutes of sirens."</div>
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After lunch, the task force co-chairs allowed me (and some friends, pictured above!) to distribute copies of my book, "Endangered Orcas", to every member of the task force, the staff, and some of the guest representatives from other agencies. THANK YOU to the 20 people who donated enough funds to cover the 54 copies we put directly into the hands of people directly involved in orca and salmon recovery. I do feel compelled to say that every person but one graciously accepted the gift with an interest in learning more; the one exception was task force member Donna Sandstrom of The Whale Trail, who declined the book and said she was not interested. As someone who routinely asks people to reconsider their opinions, my interpretation was this was an unwillingness to be open to even considering material that *might* differ from her own.<br />
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Three members of Transport Canada and DFO gave a summary of the recently announced action items in Canada. Some of the immediate/temporary measures include area fisheries closures, expanded shipping traffic slowdowns, the production of an extra 1 million smolts at the Chilliwack hatchery for Fraser River fall run Chinook, and a move to keep small vessels 400m from killer whales within Southern Resident critical habitat. You can read <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/fisheries-oceans/news/2019/05/government-of-canada-outlines-its-2019-plan-for-protecting-southern-resident-killer-whales.html" target="_blank">more details here</a>. Other longer term action items are expected within the next year. Again, the question of benchmarks was raised, with regards to how you measure success. Their response was it's something still in discussion. "We're addressing the threats; we don't have the resources to measure impact on recovery." Basically, while they may be able to measure things like reduction in noise related to vessel slowdown trials, there is again the gap of not knowing what that impact might actually be on Southern Resident killer whale recovery.</div>
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The main topic of discussion for the rest of the afternoon was population growth. It was pointed out that, like climate change, if the impacts of population growth on the region are not addressed, the rest of the work being discussed may all be for naught. There was a series of four short presentations on the topic of population growth in Washington State. A few notes I took on those:</div>
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<li>We need to look at previous population growth-related targets, how we fared on those, and if we failed, why we failed. For example, a target was set to reduce loss of riparian areas between 2001 and 2011: a target that was not met. If all we do is set a new goal, we may just fail again.</li>
<li>We need to consider how and where we grow: are critical areas protected, are our footprints small, are we increasing urban population or converting more rural land into urban areas? </li>
<li>There are currently 4 million people in the Puget Sound region, and this is projected to grow to 5.8 million by 2050. Models show we will add 33-150 square miles of impervious area (eg buildings, roads) to the region by 2055. The direct connection may not be obvious, but more impervious areas -> more runoff -> more toxins in the Salish Sea -> bad for orcas and salmon</li>
<li>There are some indicators we are moving in the right direction. One of the fastest growing residential neighborhoods is downtown Seattle, indicating we are growing "up" and not "out". 96% of housing permits are currently going to urban areas - a few decades ago this was more like 70%, with many rural areas being converted into additional housing.</li>
<li>Vision 2050 and the Regional Open Space Network are two projects working to guide growth and preserve/restore open space and rural areas.</li>
<li>We need to focus on system (aka ecosystem) level management; we can't leave each city, county, state, etc. to fend for itself when those are artificial barriers (Open Space Network a good example of not looking at political boundaries)</li>
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The task force then had time to discuss these presentations in another fishbowl conversation. One interesting topic was the idea of "no net loss" which is often stated as a habitat recovery/preservation goal, but this is a constantly shifting baseline unless more clearly defined, because "no net loss relative to what?" Some advocated for drawing a line in the sand, and saying "no net loss from X year", but Mindy from WEC pointed out that we are beyond "no net loss" scenarios, and we need to talk about goals of "net gain" on habitat. This means we would need to restore more habitat than we are destroying, so there's a net gain on serviceable habitat. I wholeheartedly agree this needs to be the target!</div>
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The task force will likely move towards making some high level recommendations regarding climate change and population growth. As Will Hall, the mayor of Shoreline, pointed out: the task force would be better served helping to set performance standards, accountability mechanisms, and a funding source, rather than dictating to jurisdictions exactly what they need to do. Not only is this a more attainable goal for the task force, it allows different solutions to be developed in different areas, which makes sense, because not all areas are facing the same problems. It's obviously a huge topic and it sounds like an additional subgroup will be formed to discuss some of these questions further before the September meeting.<br />
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Whew! Are you exhausted just reading all that? It was, as all task force meetings are, a long and tiring day, but I do still take heart in the fact that most if not all the people in the room truly want to do right by the whales and the salmon, even if they have other horses in the race as well. If it was easy to save these whales we would have done it by now. While the process and results may not be as fast or as ideal as many of us would hope, having all these people in the room talking about paths forward to real solutions is leaps and bounds ahead of where we were when the Southern Residents were listed as endangered. More has been done on behalf of the Southern Residents in the last year in both the US and Canada than in the preceding 13 years since their endangered listing. If that's not a sign of moving in the right direction, I don't know what is. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and I appreciate each and every one of you for staying engaged in whatever way you can.</div>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-82032020806715422022019-05-25T16:48:00.000-07:002019-05-25T16:48:47.631-07:00May Bigg's Killer Whale Encounters<div style="text-align: justify;">
2018 was the first year on record with no Southern Residents in the inland waters in the month of May. This year, J-Pod was seen a few days early in the month, but there has been no sign of them since May 6th. While their absence in the spring months is continuing, the presence of Bigg's/transient killer whales is still on the rise, with more reports this year than last year, continuing the incredible upward trend of the West Coast Transient population increasing their usage of the Salish Sea. Many of those sightings have been too far away for us, such as up in Howe Sound or down in Puget Sound, but we have had several great encounters so far this month. Here are highlights from a few of them:</div>
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<b>May 3 with the T49As, T65Bs, T75Bs, T75Cs, and T123s in San Juan Channel</b></div>
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On this incredible day when we encountered these 17 whales heading north up San Juan Channel, there were more than 50 Bigg's killer whales total in the Salish Sea. This group was in steady travel mode when we saw them, and despite the more frequent occurrence of larger groups in the area, it's always impressive to see so many whales surfacing side by side.</div>
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Incredibly, every one of the 5 matrilines present had a calf under the age of 2. We are so incredibly lucky not only to have these mammal-eating orcas around, but to have them as a comparative population for the struggling Southern Residents. There were more thriving little ones in this group of Bigg's killer whales than the entire Southern Resident population has had in the last four years.</div>
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We also got to see the largest whale (T49A) and smallest whale (T123D) present surfacing side by side, highlighting the major size difference!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2-GplNPNFfI/XOnN9fqs1yI/AAAAAAAATCQ/FzvoFQQnjcUzc13IY8GK2IQnrS5CYj31QCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0153-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2-GplNPNFfI/XOnN9fqs1yI/AAAAAAAATCQ/FzvoFQQnjcUzc13IY8GK2IQnrS5CYj31QCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_0153-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T123D (~8 months old) and 18 year-old male T49A1</td></tr>
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<b>May 19th with the T65Bs, T75Bs, T75Cs, and T124C in Moresby Passage</b></div>
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With wind and rain in the forecast, and sandwiched by days with no nearby orcas, we were incredibly lucky on this day to encounter these 9 whales when we headed out for our Orca Behavior Institute fundraising whale-watch with Maya's Legacy out of Snug Harbor. Earlier in the day they had killed a Steller sea lion, and when we arrived they were in full-out play mode, literally flinging around the pelt that remained from the sea lion. It was not for the faint of heart, but it was incredible to watch.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T65B flinging the Steller sea lion pelt</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6mwOTZoXVnI/XOnQIXxbvZI/AAAAAAAATCs/CSBR-DliRw8OBnktqekvG7tNTFLVJO1BQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1177-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6mwOTZoXVnI/XOnQIXxbvZI/AAAAAAAATCs/CSBR-DliRw8OBnktqekvG7tNTFLVJO1BQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_1177-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sea lion pelt being launched into the air by an inverted tail slap</td></tr>
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<b> </b><br />Of course I happened to have my camera down when the most epic photo opportunity of the day happened, but luckily my husband Jason caught it!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Side view of T65B flinging the Steller sea lion pelt....again!</td></tr>
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In general there were just a lot of shenanigans going on, including two whales playing with the lines on a couple of crab pots, and a lot of spyhopping, tail slapping, and rolling a the surface in general.</div>
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<b>May 24 with the T65As in San Juan Channel</b></div>
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After spending the better part of 2 weeks in Puget Sound, the T65As were picked up heading north towards the San Juan Islands. Luckily for us, they chose to come up San Juan Channel, and we hopped in our boat to watch them as they passed Friday Harbor.</div>
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<b> </b><br />They were in what I would call social travel mode as they passed Turn Island, rolling at the surface while in contact with one another and tail slapping as they meandered north. They made a sharp turn towards San Juan as they rounded Turn Island.</div>
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This family group is made up of six whales, the youngest of which (T65A6) was seen for the first time just over a year ago.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UpdSys-mtc4/XOnSQcJNz2I/AAAAAAAATDY/DXhw-Ewm3NcV3auWdoj07IywV5U8pnYBQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1537-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UpdSys-mtc4/XOnSQcJNz2I/AAAAAAAATDY/DXhw-Ewm3NcV3auWdoj07IywV5U8pnYBQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_1537-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rJMFGKbz9MM/XOnSaW_VdKI/AAAAAAAATDg/5kwiLgPFa6I4D6TNFH-tJOSJf6kZH1NmQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1589-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rJMFGKbz9MM/XOnSaW_VdKI/AAAAAAAATDg/5kwiLgPFa6I4D6TNFH-tJOSJf6kZH1NmQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_1589-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right, T65A3, T65A6, and T65A4</td></tr>
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The second youngest, T65A5, is five years old this year.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T65A5 next to mom T65A</td></tr>
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Just south of Brown Island, they stopped to take out a couple of harbor seals.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T65A2 surfacing after a long dive. It looked like they were tag teaming pinning a harbor seal to the bottom.</td></tr>
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Afterwards, they started quickly moving north past Friday Harbor and continuing up San Juan Channel.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A moment these sailors will be unlikely to forget!</td></tr>
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When we got our last look, they were in perfect flanking formation: successful mom surrounded by all her offspring.</div>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-86571409599381011092019-05-21T15:03:00.000-07:002019-05-21T15:03:39.722-07:00May 11-12 ~ Spring Shorebird Migration near Grays Harbor<div style="text-align: justify;">
For years I've been wanting to head to the outer coast of Washington to catch the spring shorebird migration in and around Grays Harbor. This year, we finally made it happen! While we missed the peak numbers by a week or two, we still saw an incredible variety of species - about 15 different types of shorebirds in two days!</div>
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On May 10th, the day we traveled there, the weather was both sunny and unseasonably warm. Of course, the next day saw a 30 degree drop in temperature and was very gray! It made photography a little more difficult, but still could have been much worse had it been windy or rainy instead of just gray and cool.</div>
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High tide is the best time to view shorebirds on the mudflats, and unfortunately the high tides while we were there were either very early or very late. Our first stop for the day was at Bottle Beach State Park, where we arrived as the tide was very quickly going out in the morning, but we still got to see a lot of shorebirds, even if mostly from a distance.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ATvwTjNwIlw/XORwIamZbOI/AAAAAAAAS_g/mfRdoL2yz04VyOb4I04Ko-qfkx4OT_eUACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0307-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ATvwTjNwIlw/XORwIamZbOI/AAAAAAAAS_g/mfRdoL2yz04VyOb4I04Ko-qfkx4OT_eUACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_0307-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dunlin</td></tr>
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I also got what was a bit of a surprise life bird in the red knot, as I really thought I had seen them once before! But nope, they were a lifer! Cool!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red knots in flight</td></tr>
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Next we went to Grayland Beach State Park, a known snowy plover nesting colony complete with a blocked off nesting protection zone. We walked along the perimeter of the nesting zone and were lucky enough to see one snowy plover - the first time I've seen this species north of California!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snowy plover! New Washington bird for me</td></tr>
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We were looking at some gulls on the beach when a sudden a bald eagle came swooping by - in pursuit of a greater white-fronted goose!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bald eagle in pursuit of a greater white-fronted goose</td></tr>
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The goose ended up landing in the ocean and dove underwater three times as the eagle was dive bombing it.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An odd sight: a greater white-fronted goose in the ocean</td></tr>
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It was one of those same gulls that then came to the "rescue", chasing the eagle away, and allowing the goose to survive.</div>
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At Westport Light State Park the best bird wasn't a shorebird at all, but a very cooperative male common yellowthroat, another new one for the photo year list:</div>
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In the late afternoon, we made our way back around Grays Harbor towards Ocean Shores, where we were staying. Near the jetty at Point Brown, it was interesting to see fishermen right in the breakers, successfully hauling in fish. I wonder what they were catching?</div>
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<br />We were soon distracted, though, but the hundreds of sandpipers just down the beach! They were mostly sanderling, but there were also a fair number of semipalmated plovers mixed in.</div>
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<br />This crab also made for a cool photo op. He/she was alive, though apparently missing an eye and probably not doing so well.</div>
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The next morning we came back to the jetty at Point Brown, spending most of our time scanning through the scopes. The bird highlight was a parasitic jaeger, unfortunately much too far away to photography, but rarely enough seen by any of us that it was pretty exciting. We did, however, see 4-5 gray whales fairly close to shore, including this one that spyhopped twice.</div>
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<br />Next we headed north up Highway 109 towards Point Grenville, a stretch of coastline none of us had never seen before. Unfortunately the dramatic beaches at Point Grenville were closed to the public, but we were able to see part of the view from up on the bluff, though the birding was a bit disappointing.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from Point Grenville</td></tr>
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After a late lunch we headed to an exciting spot for birders in any town: the sewage ponds! The Hoquiam Sewage Treatment Plant was bustling with bird life, and we successfully located the single blue-winged teal that had been reported earlier:</div>
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<br />As we continued to zig zag all over the place, the next walk we took was at the Oyhut Wildlife Recreation Area, which provided yet another different habitat with a marshy lagoon. The low-flying swallows (some of whom were perching on the sand) provided an opportunity for me to finally get a nice photo of a tree swallow for the year:</div>
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<br />In the evening we made another high tide attempt just before sunset by visiting Bill's Spit in Ocean Shores. The light was fading and the water was coming in fast, nearly cutting off access to the beach, but the quick visit was worth it, not only for the tranquil scenery but for the shorebirds that were coming in to roost for the night.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking out over Grays Harbor</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dunlin in flight</td></tr>
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I even snagged one last photo year bird, bringing the trip total to a whopping 18 new species added, nearly doubling my goal of adding 10 species.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The unmistakable silhouette (when viewed larger, at least) of marbled godwits</td></tr>
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All in all it was a great trip and I was glad to have finally made it out there, but now of course I definitely want to go back again when both the weather and the tides are more cooperative!</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-567174955892046452019-04-16T16:30:00.000-07:002019-04-16T16:30:42.676-07:00April 14 ~ Birding Trip with Maya's Legacy<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sunday, April 14th dawned a somewhat blustery and gray day, but that didn't stop a group of intrepid bird-watchers for heading out on a excursion with <a href="http://sanjuanislandwhalewatch.com/" target="_blank">Maya's Legacy Whale Watching</a> out of Snug Harbor. The birding started before we even left the docks with singing white-crowned sparrows, a pair of black oystercatchers on the rock in the harbor, and mew gulls foraging along the shoreline. As we slowly made our way out of the bay, we also spotted a great blue heron along the shoreline.</div>
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We didn't have to go far for our first "stop" in Mosquito Pass, where as usual in the fall, winter, and spring, there was a lot of bird activity, including bufflehead, red-breasted mergansers, red-necked grebes, and pigeon guillemots. We got a nice side-by-side comparison of double-crested and pelagic cormorants and also spotted what we may often think of as more freshwater species, Canada geese and mallards. Before continuing on into Spieden Channel we spotted a group of 7 of one of the most hoped-for species of the trip: long-tailed ducks!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long-tailed ducks in Mosquito Pass</td></tr>
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While our main focus was on birds, when you're cruising slowly through the islands you're of course going to see all kinds of things, and no trip along Spieden Island is complete without some of the exotic mammals that live there. I have made a lot of on-the-water trips to Spieden over the years, but I don't think I have ever seen as many sheep on it as I did on this day! Hundreds of them.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mouflon sheep on Spieden Island</td></tr>
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We counted more than a dozen bald eagles on or above Spieden, and they weren't just idly hanging around, either. This immature was nonchalantly dive-bombing lambs, making for some very distraught mothers. The eagle didn't seem very serious about the pursuit - perhaps just looking for any sick or injured, or just playing around - but the sheep were taking the threat seriously!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bald eagle spooks some Mouflon sheep</td></tr>
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A little further down the shoreline, four more eagles were huddled around a carcass of some sort (perhaps seal?), along with some northwestern crows.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eagles and crows scavenging a carcass</td></tr>
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When one of the immature eagles took flight, it was amazing to see how much white was on it!</div>
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Next we headed over to White Rock, where as hoped for we turned up our first shorebirds: a couple of black turnstones and about a dozen dunlin. There was also another eagle perched on top of the rock, making for a striking image with the harbor seals hauled out below.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bald eagle and harbor seals at White Rock</td></tr>
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Let's take a closer look at one of those seals....awwwwww:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young harbor seal at White Rock</td></tr>
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Next we continued north towards Monarch Head. The way there was a bit choppy, but we started seeing some new species for the day, including rhinoceros auklets and our only western grebes for the trip. At Monarch Head itself the only addition oddly enough was a pair of turkey vultures, but the stunning geology still made the trip worth it:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cool rock formations at Monarch Head</td></tr>
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Next it was over to East Point on Saturna Island where the first sight (and smell) we noticed was all the Steller sea lions:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steller sea lions at East Point</td></tr>
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A closer look at the birds on and near the same rocks, however, turned up four gull species (glaucous-winged, mew, California, and Bonaparte's), harlequin ducks, a couple of black oystercatchers, and another male long-tailed duck. A little south of us we spotted an active bait ball, so we started to head over that way. They mostly settled down by the time we got there, but there were still several dozen common murres, rhinoceros auklets, red-breasted mergansers, and, best of all, Bonaparte's gulls. The few sitting on the rocks at East Point were cool, but the reason they're one of my favorite marine birds is because of how awesome they look in flight. It's late enough in the season now that they also all have black heads, our only black-headed gull in the region.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bonaparte's gulls in flight near Patos Island</td></tr>
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As we cruises from Patos to Sucia, another small rocky reef had an unlikely pair sitting together: a harbor seal and a bald eagle.</div>
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It's rare enough that I get over to this part of the San Juan Islands that I didn't even know there was an impressive sea lion haul out on Ewing Island near Sucia. It was incredible to see how high up on the rocks these guys go!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sea lions on Ewing Island</td></tr>
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Even the harbor seals seemed to want to show off their (admittedly less impressive) climbing skills:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harbor seals at Ewing Island</td></tr>
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Bird-wise there were many more pigeon guillemots, some harlequin ducks, a few surf scoters, and surprisingly our only loon of the day (a Pacific loon), but the best look was of a pair of black oystercatchers that came by to scold us for being in the area:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black oystercatcher in flight near Ewing Island, with Steller sea lions in the background</td></tr>
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We continued cruising south towards Peapod Rocks, where we found more black turnstones but none of the hoped-for surfbirds or plovers. There was plenty of bird activity though with a nice variety of the usual suspects all in one place, including glaucous-winged gulls, pelagic cormorants, harlequin ducks, and several more pairs of oystercatchers.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peapod rocks</td></tr>
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It was time to start making our way back to the home port so we picked up speed for really the first time of the day and wound our way west through the San Juans. We were still just short of 30 sepcies on the day, however, so instead of cutting back through Mosquito Pass, with the seas a little calmer we went on the outside of Henry Island in hopes of finding a peregrine falcon. Success!</div>
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Below the peregrine (who was high up but on such a photogenic perch) was a red-flowering currant clinging to the rocks, and amusingly there was a female rufous hummingbird feeding at it! While this is not my first time seeing hummingbirds from a boat, they're certainly not one of the species that comes to mind when you're thinking about marine birds. We were only a few minutes from the dock at this point, but the day list wasn't done yet: as we pulled back into Snug Harbor we also added hooded mergansers and rock pigeons.</div>
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Despite the less than ideal conditions it was still a beautiful day on the water. It was a nice change of pace, too, to slowly meander through the islands and enjoy many of the smaller sights that make this place so special. There is definitely so much to see here beyond just all the whales!</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-30890466580962850372019-04-04T17:53:00.000-07:002019-04-04T17:53:00.920-07:00March 26 and April 1 with J-Pod<div style="text-align: justify;">
We recently got our new boat (acquired last fall) launched, which means new photographic opportunities have opened up again as we get back out on the water! On our first test drive we went birding in Griffin Bay, and I snapped this shot of two mew gulls and reflections unlike any I had ever seen before:</div>
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So far to date in 2019 the Southern Residents have been in the Salish Sea about twice as many days as 2018, and we are happy to have them! On March 23, I had my first encounter with them in 2019. While it was a lot more hearing them over the hydrophones, we did see a couple whales in the morning from Land Bank. It was great to see J17 Princess Angeline, a whale who had been ailing (and had "peanut head") dated back to the end of last year, and while it wasn't the greatest look, it appeared she was doing a bit better.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J17 Princess Angeline</td></tr>
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On March 26, less than a week after we got our new boat in the water, J-Pod was coming down San Juan Channel, and opportunity that was just too good to pass up! Ever since we got the boat last fall, we had been debating which whales might be the ones to "christen" the boat. Given the time of year and the way sightings have been with Southern Residents, we suspected it would likely be Ts, but it definitely felt right for it to be J-Pod.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J35 Tahlequah - It felt perfect to have her be the whale to "christen" the boat by breaching and spyhopping nearby</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spyhop, also from J35 Tahlequah</td></tr>
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We always say every whale encounter was different, and this one was no exception - we saw two different whales peeing into the air while laying upside down at the surface! This is a behavior I've never seen before, and to see it twice in the span of about half an hour....please tell me this isn't their new "fad"!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you are so inclined, you may need to click to see a larger view, but the upside down whale is urinating!</td></tr>
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J-Pod only got about as far south as Yellow Island before turning back north again, so as they made their way back toward Boundary Pass and the Strait of Georgia, we headed back to our home port. If this spring was anything like last year's, I thought it might be weeks or months before seeing them again, but amazingly, on April 1 J-Pod was again picked up aiming for San Juan Channel! We hopped out on a boat with friends in the late afternoon and caught up with them just north of Friday Harbor.</div>
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The first group we saw was J36 Alki, J42 Echo, J19 Shachi, J27 Blackberry, and J31 Tsuchi following right along the San Juan shoreline. The lighting was just right for backlit blows (at times to the point where we could see the blows but not the whales!):</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J27 Blackberry</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mo35jc3szxQ/XKaiAMN0xZI/AAAAAAAAS4s/WQNYZwlx6foxGq_HYsWdVMHfhISEl3_DwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_8395-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1280" height="223" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mo35jc3szxQ/XKaiAMN0xZI/AAAAAAAAS4s/WQNYZwlx6foxGq_HYsWdVMHfhISEl3_DwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_8395-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right J27 Blackberry, J36 Alki, and J19 Shachi</td></tr>
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They passed right in front of Friday Harbor, which is always a cool perspective to see!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J27 Blackberry in front of Friday Harbor</td></tr>
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As this group continued south, we stopped to watch J41 Eclipse and J51 Nova, who seemed in a playful mood, as we saw Nova do several breaches as they approached. As they got closer we saw Nova pick up a piece of bull kelp, and he spyhopped several times with it draped around his head or over his pec fins.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A peek-a-boo spyhop from J51 Nova - you can just make out a piece of bull kelp floating to the right of his head</td></tr>
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On one of the spyhops he surfaced with his mouth open. I don't know what it is about whale teeth, but it is always SO exciting to see them!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J51 Nova, mouth open</td></tr>
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It was definitely turning into a spyhop kinda night, and shortly after this one, J42 Echo popped up again, and also spyhopped with her mouth open, teeth showing.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another mouth-open spyhop, this one from J42 Echo</td></tr>
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The rest of J-Pod was starting to come into view over on the Shaw Island side of the channel, and the whales we were watching went over to join them. It turned into a large (~15 whales), slowly moving, playful group that was a joy to watch.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spyhops for all on this night!</td></tr>
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Not only was the lighting perfect, but the whales passed right under Mt. Baker. And, as if on cue, J35 Tahlequah did a huge cartwheel. It sure does the heart good to see her so social and active after her tragic ordeal last summer, in which she carried her deceased neonate for 17 days.</div>
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Amazingly, instead of continuing down San Juan Channel, the whales veered for Upright Channel, a place I had never seen Southern Residents go before! As they angled into the channel, they passed close to a Washington State Ferry heading for Friday Harbor.</div>
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The ferry didn't seem to interrupt the party at all, as all the surface activity continued.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Half breach from one of the big boys</td></tr>
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Next we saw L87 Onyx, in what looked like a sexual pursuit of another whale. At first I thought it was J37 Hy'shqa he was after, but it turned out to be J45 Se-Yi'-Chn. Boys will be boys, and orcas will be orcas!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L87 Onyx upside down at the surface</td></tr>
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Suddenly, Onyx veered off and came over to circle the boat, giving us a special up close look, complete with a "rainblow".</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L87 Onyx creates a "rainblow"</td></tr>
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We hung in the same area for quite a while, as several other pairs and trios of whales came by, spread across all of Upright Channel.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J26 Mike passed right off the point of Canoe Island</td></tr>
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The leaders got up to about Upright Head, and it appeared to be decision time. Would they continue east towards Rosario, veer over to Harney Channel, or come back the way they had come? They eventually decided to head back west through Upright Channel, but amazingly they hugged the Shaw Island shoreline so close they went inside of Canoe Island and right into Indian Cove, a channel not only narrow, but according to the chart on board only 13 feet deep on high tide! It was time to head in, but we had to stay long enough to see if they were actually going to go all the way through there....they did!</div>
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The beautiful evening ended as it had begun, with picturesque backlit blows:</div>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-59700218640109410602019-03-24T12:36:00.001-07:002019-03-24T12:36:47.796-07:00March 16 ~ T49As and T101s; T2Cs<div style="text-align: justify;">
On March 16 we headed out on the water with <a href="http://sanjuanislandwhalewatch.com/whale-watching/" target="_blank">Maya's Legacy</a> from Friday Harbor. There were no whale reports but it was a beautiful day, and with many groups around over the previous week hopes were high we would find some. Our first stop though was at Spieden Island, where in addition to the sea lions, there was lots of other activity.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pigeon guillemot in flight in Spieden Channel</td></tr>
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Spring was clearly in the air with lots of Mouflon lambs about.</div>
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This mom had twins!</div>
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Over at the seal haul out west of Sentinel a pair of bald eagles was hanging out, making for an even cooler photo op!</div>
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We cruised up around Turn Point and crossed Boundary Pass, with amazing scenery in all directions.</div>
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Snaking our way through the Canadian Gulf Islands, we stopped at the Belle Chain Islets - a place I haven't visited in many years! It's one of the most spectacular sea lion haul outs in the region, plus a great spot for bird life, all with snow-capped mountains in the background.</div>
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While watching Steller sea lion antics a report came in over the radio that someone had made contact with killer whales, luckily not too far south of us between us and home! We headed in that direction and encountered the T49As and T18s near East Point of Saturna Island. Interestingly they were split into three groups, each with members of both matrilines.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T49A3 and T19B</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T19 Mooyah</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The distinct dorsal fin of T19B Galiano</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T49A4 (left) and T49A5 (center)</td></tr>
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While watching the whales this massive freighter came through - look at how much water its displacing off the bow! The noise from commercial shipping traffic in the Salish Sea has by far the greatest acoustic impact on the whales.</div>
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As we departed to make our way back to Friday Harbor, another vessel found an additional group of whales - somewhat amusingly after all our travels, right near Friday Harbor itself. It was too tempting not to make another stop, especially because it was <a href="http://www.orcawatcher.com/2018/03/part-1-meet-t2cs.html" target="_blank">the T2Cs, a very special family group of whales</a>.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The T2Cs in San Juan Channel</td></tr>
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One of the members of this family group, T2C2 Tumbo, has scoliosis, and the rest of the family regularly waits for him and also feeds him as he seems incapable of participating in the hunts. While mother T2C Tasu has four offspring, I always particular love seeing her two oldest together:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T2C1 Rocky and T2C2 Tumbo</td></tr>
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From there it was a very short trip back to the home port, concluding another stunning day on the waters of the Salish Sea!</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-10189081489184962452019-03-15T22:51:00.000-07:002019-03-15T22:51:23.887-07:00March 9 ~ Birding Semiahmoo<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last weekend we headed off island to run some errands. I thought it would be a ferry ride like any other, but it turned into a very memorable one: after 18 years of riding these ferries regularly, I finally saw orcas from the ferry! And not once, but twice on the same trip!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T124As outside of Friday Harbor</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T123s near Blakely Island</td></tr>
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While I'm glad that drought is finally broken, I have to say it's actually not so great to see whales from the ferry, because of course the ferry keeps going while I would rather stay and watch!</div>
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After getting our errands done, we had enough time to make a visit to one of my favorite regional birding spots at Semiahmoo. As hoped for, we saw a lot of birds, some of them new to the year list, and the icing on the cake was the beautiful evening light.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Common loon</td></tr>
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We got a scoter hat trick, seeing all three species there (surf, white-winged, and black).</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black scoters - far away, but awesome because they are uncommon to see. Cameo appearance by a few brant!</td></tr>
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On our drive we saw multiple pairs of bald eagles at nests - it's that time of year! This one perched on top of the tower at the end of Semiahmoo Spit and was calling to another bird (presumably its mate) flying above it.</div>
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It took a little longer than expected to add black-capped chickadee to the photo year list, but I finally got a photo of one. We've only got chestnut-sided chickadees on San Juan Island, and while I've seen several other black-cappeds, there was never a chance to photograph one without the "hand of man" for this year's challenge.</div>
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Two of my hoped-for species for the trip to Semiahmoo did not disappoint: greater scaup and brant.</div>
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As the light was fading it was getting time to head back for the ferry, but it was hard to leave with scenes like this:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Semiahmoo Spit</td></tr>
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Just a couple more photographs before warming up in the car, for good measure:</div>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-30428581359094489942019-03-08T16:36:00.000-08:002019-03-08T16:36:10.761-08:00March 3 Double Header: T46s and T90s/T101s<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last weekend we headed out on the water with <a href="http://sanjuanislandwhalewatch.com/" target="_blank">Maya's Legacy</a> on a beautiful day. With heavy winds to the north, we headed south down San Juan Channel and made a stop at Whale Rocks, my favorite sea lion haul out.</div>
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With a report of whales in Puget Sound, they made the decision to go for it - a bit of a long trek, but new boating territory for me! It was awesome to check off my bucket list going under the Deception Pass Bridge on a boat.</div>
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We're starting to see signs of spring, but winter is still keeping her grip on the region, as evidenced by the snowy foothills providing a backdrop to our journey:</div>
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When we got on scene with the T46s (and T122 who travels with them) we started by watching the two males T46D and T46E traveling together. It was impressive to see them with all the houses in the background, as it really shows how urban these whales are!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uj5e1yhGdiQ/XIMFYFcgPUI/AAAAAAAASyQ/C53D_nyb-AMCXRMHkh_qi4Go_WSGDYAiQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6694-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uj5e1yhGdiQ/XIMFYFcgPUI/AAAAAAAASyQ/C53D_nyb-AMCXRMHkh_qi4Go_WSGDYAiQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6694-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T46D (left) and T46E (right)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SKTdbZdIYdk/XIMFgLflSFI/AAAAAAAASyU/oBeufbjeoU8cKhZDBbr6IhroBPtZHXY7gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6726-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SKTdbZdIYdk/XIMFgLflSFI/AAAAAAAASyU/oBeufbjeoU8cKhZDBbr6IhroBPtZHXY7gCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6726-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T46E (left) and T46D (right)</td></tr>
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The T46s are such a cool family for many reasons. One is that T46 Wake was part of the last killer whale capture in Washington State in 1976. She was released and is still plying the same waters as one of the most successful mothers on record. As we discussed on the boat while we were on scene, if she had been taken into captivity as many other whales were in the 1960s and 70s, there would be nearly 20 fewer transient killer whales in the region, because that's how many living descendants she has.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u3SdOapi-QQ/XIMGb9-q5bI/AAAAAAAASyk/sz7Y9ZX2NGAzpXhpazMeqtvnMozRW82uQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6764-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u3SdOapi-QQ/XIMGb9-q5bI/AAAAAAAASyk/sz7Y9ZX2NGAzpXhpazMeqtvnMozRW82uQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6764-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T46 Wake with her son T46E.</td></tr>
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Another reason the T46s are so cool is because they actually "disappeared" for 13 years, where they left the area and weren't seen during that time. When they returned, there was actually some confusion about the whales that were present. Two of the returning whales were given new designations as T122 and T123, but were later determined to be the likely offspring of T46. T122 still travels with the T46s, and was actually determined to be the same whale as T46A, a calf who was seen in 1982 before the long gap in sightings.</div>
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It's long been my dream to be able to name a killer whale, and my dream recently came true when my suggested name for T122, Centeki, was voted to be her name among the local whale community. (An effort is under way from naturalists, captains, researchers, and others in the region to give common names to many of the transient/Bigg's killer whales in the region that don't yet have them.) Centeki is one of the 13 lunar phases recognized by the Coast Salish people, and I thought this was appropriate given the confusion over her identify after her 13 year absence.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kzYR-TTApFI/XIMIaEkgdQI/AAAAAAAASyw/MkX4eKMewZUhRQ0kwnUOjh4vy8BBHVUaACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6779-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kzYR-TTApFI/XIMIaEkgdQI/AAAAAAAASyw/MkX4eKMewZUhRQ0kwnUOjh4vy8BBHVUaACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6779-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T122 Centeki, named by yours truly!</td></tr>
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While we were on scene in Saratoga Passage, the whales appeared to be in travel/passive hunting mode, but shortly before it was time to leave it became clear they were on the hunt. Four of the five whales in the family group made quick work of a harbor seal, which we got a brief glimpse of as one of the whales lunged through the surface with the seal held in its mouth. As they shared the spoils, gulls came down to partake in the scraps. I thought this was a unique perspective of gulls fighting over a piece of seal meat while an orca surfaces in the background:</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QcdweyPI7nM/XIMI6b42cUI/AAAAAAAASy4/TDhf7kxEg6U4yp0Ka80YQw6cBCH-3m4AACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6847-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QcdweyPI7nM/XIMI6b42cUI/AAAAAAAASy4/TDhf7kxEg6U4yp0Ka80YQw6cBCH-3m4AACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6847-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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One more look at the impressive 16 year-old male T46E, with his wavy dorsal fin:</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8GEuGkKTlmo/XIMJGN2MHPI/AAAAAAAASy8/nyhVt6gE8Nor75DB4txtJAowSiz5WjUrwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6814-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8GEuGkKTlmo/XIMJGN2MHPI/AAAAAAAASy8/nyhVt6gE8Nor75DB4txtJAowSiz5WjUrwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6814-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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As we started making our way back north towards home, reports came in of another group of whales picked up between us and Friday Harbor. At this point, the trip was already running long, so why not just keep it going, especially when more whales in calm waters and beautiful lighting are right in front of you? Too good to pass up!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qTwh-pittnY/XIMJeXilTMI/AAAAAAAASzI/T5aKvKM5VV4dyC9BvlgQkKtyISq515LHgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6995-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qTwh-pittnY/XIMJeXilTMI/AAAAAAAASzI/T5aKvKM5VV4dyC9BvlgQkKtyISq515LHgCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6995-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T101 and T101B under Mt. Baker</td></tr>
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It was the T90s and T101s, and we watched them make their way into Cattle Pass from Iceberg Point.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spyhop from T90B</td></tr>
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The whales just added to what was already a stunning scene, with seals, sea lions, porpoises, and birds actively feeding in what was shaping up to be a pretty dramatic sunset!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Eyb0UduDmuY/XIMJ7XUQX5I/AAAAAAAASzU/sTFQl63uKOYl2mhsZOmT35GoVG3rA_m9QCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_7079-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Eyb0UduDmuY/XIMJ7XUQX5I/AAAAAAAASzU/sTFQl63uKOYl2mhsZOmT35GoVG3rA_m9QCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_7079-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pelagic cormorant flyby</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k0Pi0CIi9jI/XIMKAA9_AmI/AAAAAAAASzc/1yeDO2VIAukmWzSFYjyGUze3xqA34fKHQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_7103-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k0Pi0CIi9jI/XIMKAA9_AmI/AAAAAAAASzc/1yeDO2VIAukmWzSFYjyGUze3xqA34fKHQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_7103-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset over the Cattle Point Lighthouse</td></tr>
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While it ended up being a much longer trip than expected, it was a particularly memorable one! I absolutely love being on the water this time of year when things are still pretty quiet, especially as the whale sightings start picking up. It's looking like the heightened transient/Bigg's killer whale sigthings are continuing so far in early 2019, so we'll see what the rest of the spring will bring!</div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-63758702328269514742019-02-24T18:21:00.002-08:002019-02-24T18:24:55.946-08:00February 16 with the T69Ds and T90s - Plus: Why I Support Whale-Watching<div style="text-align: justify;">
While whales have been around occasionally, I hadn't seen any since the end of October, and for an orcaholic like myself, full whale withdrawal was beginning to set in. I was able to get out on the water for the first time in 2019 last weekend, right towards the end of a long streak of winter weather, meaning there was still snow on the ground, transforming typical scenes like Spieden Island into something completely different.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IXXwQOjEv9o/XHNFo83EOJI/AAAAAAAASwY/VxGqsbb5am0wgGxXUuXb-bDa9t3PJyxfACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6179-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IXXwQOjEv9o/XHNFo83EOJI/AAAAAAAASwY/VxGqsbb5am0wgGxXUuXb-bDa9t3PJyxfACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6179-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steller sea lions on Green Point</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-81AauYWr9PE/XHNFz_XaDpI/AAAAAAAASwc/Ipj8xKDHPKAyVJskqeDpjmygWWFMV72HwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6492-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-81AauYWr9PE/XHNFz_XaDpI/AAAAAAAASwc/Ipj8xKDHPKAyVJskqeDpjmygWWFMV72HwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6492-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spieden Island under a dusting of snow</td></tr>
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We joined several other boats in a search for a group of transient killer whales that had been seen several hours before, and as luck would have it, they were found! It was so great to see some dorsal fins again, and even cooler with the snowy backdrop - a bucket list item for me, to see killer whales in the snow!</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gwDe1h4u30Y/XHNGGaLS1AI/AAAAAAAASwo/0DS1NmUHfKI2Q5HxzNvqO03XrRB2pfsHACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6389-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gwDe1h4u30Y/XHNGGaLS1AI/AAAAAAAASwo/0DS1NmUHfKI2Q5HxzNvqO03XrRB2pfsHACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6389-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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We recognized the T90s, but there were other whales present as well, and it wasn't until we got home and pulled out the older but more complete transient ID guide that we realized we had seen the T69Ds - new whales for me!</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EIsfcmKTUYE/XHNGTXELhFI/AAAAAAAASws/6MCbPAiUmhsxswC_tXimbpxh7tPmAsqTQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6328-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EIsfcmKTUYE/XHNGTXELhFI/AAAAAAAASws/6MCbPAiUmhsxswC_tXimbpxh7tPmAsqTQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6328-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right T69D1, T69D2, and T69D</td></tr>
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The T69s are more often encountered on the western side of Vancouver Island, but like many other transient matrilines, have started venturing into the Salish Sea a bit over the last few years. While we were on scene, the group of 7 whales was in steady travel mode, meaning we often got to see lots of fins at the surface all together!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BGRH5rxqSh8/XHNGnym1GQI/AAAAAAAASw4/vSdq6B9Ya1gvqkTZTwU0Z6pwB4VMguqtQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6338-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BGRH5rxqSh8/XHNGnym1GQI/AAAAAAAASw4/vSdq6B9Ya1gvqkTZTwU0Z6pwB4VMguqtQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6338-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right: T90B, T90C, T90D, T69D1, T90, and T69D</td></tr>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YAISvu9sOiw/XHNG431AuaI/AAAAAAAASxA/JS9m8dOMug8j6pR7i-BOEwsPFJxTGaqGQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6286-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YAISvu9sOiw/XHNG431AuaI/AAAAAAAASxA/JS9m8dOMug8j6pR7i-BOEwsPFJxTGaqGQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6286-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Before we left, we got some of those classic backlit blows:</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8uSEMvOKjH0/XHNHEvzS6GI/AAAAAAAASxE/1GD4ruWlplI7a7nNmGWIouD06AYHrkn6ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6447-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8uSEMvOKjH0/XHNHEvzS6GI/AAAAAAAASxE/1GD4ruWlplI7a7nNmGWIouD06AYHrkn6ACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6447-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And this shot of pelagic cormorants on a log was too fun not to share as well:</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5qy59AOIJ4o/XHNHSwU9lII/AAAAAAAASxM/cnj3uVBP5UQk8JI3z46LKkgvuD7wo93LACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_6225-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5qy59AOIJ4o/XHNHSwU9lII/AAAAAAAASxM/cnj3uVBP5UQk8JI3z46LKkgvuD7wo93LACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_6225-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It was a refreshing afternoon on the water and spending some time with some killer whales was rejuvenating to the soul, but looming over the encounter was the threat of a moratorium on the viewing of Southern Residents and a permanent increase in viewing distances from 200 to 400 yards on both sides of the border, as Governor Inslee's bill based on an Orca Task Force recommendation moves through the state legislature and vessel working groups in Canada consider the same options. The scientific merits of these recommendations are dubious at best; I can and have gone into the scientific details elsewhere, but the short version is that speed matters a lot more than proximity in terms of noise levels around the whales. I want to take a moment hear to share something else, however: the fact that whale-watching changed my life.</div>
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<span class="_5yl5">A whale watch trip my family took in Alaska
when I was 12 truly redefined the course I would take. It was the first
time I saw orcas in the wild and since that day there has been no going
back for me. Coming home from that trip, I did research about other
killer whale populations and learned about the Southern Residents. A
couple years later we came to the San Juan Islands and it was from a
boat I would meet the whales that would become my life's passion. The
generation before me was influenced by seeing whales at SeaWorld. My
generation has been influenced by seeing whales in the wild.</span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">I am far from the only one who has had a
life-changing experience on a whale watch trip. I know this in part from
my 6 years working on a boat and seeing these moments occur for people firsthand. I
also know this because many of the people in our whale community have
had experiences similar to the one I did, where a boat trip to see wild
whales was a transformative experience.</span></span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5"><i><span class="_5yl5">Last summer just before J35 and J50 put the
Southern Residents in the world spotlight, 12 members of my husband’s
family did a tour with Maya's Legacy including myself and my husband....</span></i></span></span><span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5"><i><span class="_5yl5"><i><span class="_5yl5">We were fortunate to be one of only two boats on the water with the T124As, but </span></i>Captain Jeff started
talking about how they were seeing less and less of the Residents and
why... Coming from me was one thing, but for
them to hear what was happening to our beloved Southern Residents from
their captain and to see his concern and compassion was huge. They all
wanted to know what they could do to help. We never saw Residents the
whole week (in early July) that we were there, but the impression was
made and I know they all went back to Arizona, Florida and even Italy
and told the story of the Residents' plight to their friends and family.
- Susan</span></i> </span></span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">Some are advocating that people watch whales from shore instead of on a boat, and while some of my best-ever whale encounters have come from shore, the reality is it's not as viable of an option as it was 15 years ago. When I first started visiting the San Juans, the Southern Residents passed the west side of San Juan Island on a near-daily basis during May-September. Now it's not uncommon for weeks to go by during that time with no Southern Residents seen from Lime Kiln. It's just not realistic to ask visitors to see whales from shore when sightings have become so sporadic.</span></span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">We keep hearing (in large part
from people who have never been whale-watching) about how whale watch
companies are owned by businessmen out to exploit an endangered species:
in it for the money with little regard for the well-being of the
whales. I have met many of the owners of Pacific Whale Watch Association
companies and I have yet to meet one who falls into this
category. They all got into it for the same reason I got into it: out of
a love for the whales, the wildlife, and this entire ecosystem. Yes,
they make their living at it, but they are constantly assessing moment
to moment and year to year what is best for the whales.</span></span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5"><i><span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">I had a
trip booked with Maya's Legacy far in advance, had friends/family in
town that were going with, and the weekend we went out wound up being 4
days after J35 lost her calf. Captain Jeff told our entire boat full that they
were the only orcas in the area, and that we would not be within any
kind of optimum viewing distance because of the circumstances. He
offered to refund the entire boat. But everyone still wanted to go out
on the water regardless and wanted to hear more about what was
happening.... We were only out
there for a brief time, witnessing through binoculars part of J-Pod foraging near the Fraser. Jeff got emotional while we were there. Some
people don't get to see that. And I guess that’s why it infuriates me
to have them vilified and thrown under the bus. Because it seems, to me,
the exact opposite, in more cases than not. But because this is also
how they make a living, we just hear “exploitation”. - Amanda</span></span></i> </span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">I have had
conversations with owners, captains, and naturalists over the last 18
years, and seeing firsthand how much they care is what has made me upset about vilifying what they
do, scapegoating them as the reason the whales are in the situation they
are in, and calling for more restrictions simply because you advocate for any and all orca protections without
taking time to become familiar with both the science and the people
involved. The whale watch industry has constantly gone above and beyond what is required of
them to protect the whales. Do they make mistakes? Yes. Is it a work in
progress? Yes. But they are the only industry I can think of that is
voluntarily making sacrifices to benefit the whales.</span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">Part of the reason I have been outspoken on
this issue is because I've read all the science and I want to advocate
for what's best for the whales. My greatest fear is that we will ban or
further restrict whale-watching and walk away feeling like we have done
something bold to help recover the Southern Residents, when in reality
we will have failed yet again to tackle the major, yet more complicated, issues they face. </span></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">Some people have assumed I'm being paid by the whale watch industry to have this opinion, but this is not true - in fact, it is at my own personal
expense that I travel to these meetings to make public comment, and it
is my own free time I give to writing letters, posting debriefs of the
science, and encouraging advocacy. In the interest of full disclosure I
did work for a whale-watch company as a naturalist from 2005-2010. I also volunteered on Soundwatch for several summers, both of which gave me perspective. I do go out on whale-watch vessels, with people who are friends and
when there is extra space available anyway; this is not in exchange for my advocacy. My opinions and my work are
not being compensated for in any way; they are my own, and they are
based on my experiences.</span> </span></span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5"><span class="_5yl5">Thanks to some common sense prevailing, the vessel bills have been altered to remove the moratorium on viewing of Southern Residents. They include a go-slow zone around the whales, a permitting system on commercial whale watch vessels, and an increase to a 300 yard viewing distance on Southern Residents. Ten years ago when the first vessel regulations went into place, vessels were the focus for years, because they were the low-hanging fruit: the easiest thing to address. Since then, we have still failed to seriously address the more major risk factors of salmon abundance and contaminants. Now that we have spent months debating vessels again, my hope is that we can finally move on. If we are serious about Southern Resident killer whale recovery, this conversation can no longer be about vessels, vessels, vessels. We must put that risk factor aside and finally talk about what can be done on the big ticket issues, even if they are complex and the sacrifices painful. </span> </span></div>
Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3970777878498844654.post-80142704457798627742019-01-27T13:46:00.000-08:002019-01-27T13:46:40.807-08:00Winter Birding on Lopez Island<div style="text-align: justify;">
With so many microclimates and microhabitats in the San Juan Islands, there are very different places to explore and even different birds to see depending on which island you are on. Because of the convenience of the ferry schedule, when we decide to explore another island, we usually go to Orcas, but yesterday we decided to go for the extra early and extra long ferry rides in order to explore Lopez Island. Good decision!</div>
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Locally known as "Slowpez", Lopez is definitely the quietest of the larger ferry-served island with about half the population of Orcas and a third of the population of San Juan. It's also been nicknamed "the friendly isle", in part because every car waves to every other car as they pass each other anywhere on the island. I've only been to Lopez a handful of times myself, which means there are still parks I have yet to explore over there. After our visit yesterday, I think I actually prefer the Lopez over Orcas, because there are more coastal access points with dramatic landscapes and fewer in the way of hilly wooded hikes.</div>
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One of the main reasons for our trip was to go birding and try and add some species to our year and photo year lists. Our first stop in the morning was to Fisherman Bay, where both the species and photographic opportunities added up quickly!</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2vYdjO0R0HQ/XE4hBr81r9I/AAAAAAAASsw/sASzuHbTOgw00OaPdOrouCxoiwcmYofLgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5439-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2vYdjO0R0HQ/XE4hBr81r9I/AAAAAAAASsw/sASzuHbTOgw00OaPdOrouCxoiwcmYofLgCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5439-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Belted kingfisher in the early morning light at Fisherman Bay</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9-5oosIw774/XE4hHfyZl2I/AAAAAAAASs0/JkL_oorOnlQT7nFmpU81K8g0FfqxeuUdQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5444-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9-5oosIw774/XE4hHfyZl2I/AAAAAAAASs0/JkL_oorOnlQT7nFmpU81K8g0FfqxeuUdQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5444-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Great blue heron at Fisherman Bay</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RHX-RWL7rCc/XE4hM24USdI/AAAAAAAASs4/26kAtaiyeKArs3nY761oYSEZ9tO_x7enwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5451-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RHX-RWL7rCc/XE4hM24USdI/AAAAAAAASs4/26kAtaiyeKArs3nY761oYSEZ9tO_x7enwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5451-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heading out the spit at Fisherman Bay</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RfNnSnYCZOg/XE4hSy_x0oI/AAAAAAAAStA/rPIqS5QPHl0GBIlP9_XX2Q7iqlfZI9x0ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5469-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RfNnSnYCZOg/XE4hSy_x0oI/AAAAAAAAStA/rPIqS5QPHl0GBIlP9_XX2Q7iqlfZI9x0ACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5469-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abstract rock and tree reflection at Fisherman Bay</td></tr>
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<br />Our next stop was Shark Reef, which is on the opposite side of San Juan Channel of our regular stomping grounds at Cattle Point. Unlike Cattle Point, which is all open prairie, you hike through the woods to get to the rocky Shark Reef.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4dnEk70s-Xc/XE4hin6ovuI/AAAAAAAAStI/la_9Mj9lKi8AAkGbcvFBTGupCD5VhB_HACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5473-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4dnEk70s-Xc/XE4hin6ovuI/AAAAAAAAStI/la_9Mj9lKi8AAkGbcvFBTGupCD5VhB_HACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5473-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boardwalk at Shark Reef</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UkwTPPPYYYE/XE4hm3XcsII/AAAAAAAAStQ/O5_3jDJYo44FsoJBG9VW_v_8oDiUT-aTQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5479-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UkwTPPPYYYE/XE4hm3XcsII/AAAAAAAAStQ/O5_3jDJYo44FsoJBG9VW_v_8oDiUT-aTQCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5479-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shark Reef, on the east side of Cattle Pass</td></tr>
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Next we searched for one of the main target species for our trip: the wild turkey! While they used to be found on other island including San Juan, currently the only flock of wild turkeys on the island makes their home on Lopez. We were just about to give up when we came upon a group of more than 20 of them! I'm not sure why they are so much more fun to watch than many other birds, but they are - I suppose it's because they're very expressive, comical, and have lots of social interactions.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XEM4Uf-RRMw/XE4iAwLt5KI/AAAAAAAAStc/A0WJfdlqFAI0QnN73QKAJrQiN1jHXNV7ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5499-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XEM4Uf-RRMw/XE4iAwLt5KI/AAAAAAAAStc/A0WJfdlqFAI0QnN73QKAJrQiN1jHXNV7ACLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5499-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wild turkeys on Lopez</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's surprising to see such a large bird fly - not only over this fence, but even up into the trees above!</td></tr>
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Our next stop was Iceberg Point, a place I amazingly had never visited before. There are miles of hiking trails there and we only got to go out to the point in one direction, so we will definitely have to go back. While the birding was decent, the scenery is absolutely stunning.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wbIJtx5ekCQ/XE4iTxsyDBI/AAAAAAAASts/6ei-WKNtDEQjTg13TYoLdmdCYTTu_iY9gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5519-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wbIJtx5ekCQ/XE4iTxsyDBI/AAAAAAAASts/6ei-WKNtDEQjTg13TYoLdmdCYTTu_iY9gCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5519-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iceberg Point</td></tr>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HqE7f4p3HHk/XE4ib6eeGsI/AAAAAAAAStw/K6509qRadrQ_Oceacgy370A1G13cG2OIwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_5552-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1214" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HqE7f4p3HHk/XE4ib6eeGsI/AAAAAAAAStw/K6509qRadrQ_Oceacgy370A1G13cG2OIwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_5552-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It also offered a different perspective on Cattle Point:</div>
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The geology is complex and amazing throughout the San Juans as well, and Iceberg Point was no exception.</div>
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Hummel Lake was pretty quiet, but seems to be one of the first locations swallows show up in the islands each year. With reports of some already in nearby Skagit County, the early arrivals might not be far off! We settled for this picturesque common merganser though:</div>
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Our last stop before heading back to the ferry was out to Spencer Spit, but we got waylaid on the way there at first by a northern shrike (which would only perch on fence posts, so sadly will not quality for the photo year list which has the theme of photos "without the hand of man"), and then by these sheep. Have you ever seen sheep run before? I don't think I have!</div>
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Unlike the ferry ride there, the ferry ride back was in the daylight, so we continued birding from the boat (as we again stopped at every island on our way home). </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An up-close view of double-crested and pelagic cormorants at the Shaw Island ferry terminal</td></tr>
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No luck on the shrike, but I did get a rock pigeon picture "without the hand of man"! I like this theme because it makes me attempt different and more challenging photos, such as in-flight shots. The different challenge means the first rock pigeons I saw this year perched on a man-made structure didn't "count", but I like this result much better!</div>
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In the end we tallied 52 species on the day, the highest single-day total yet this year! Not at all a bad showing, and after a several year gap in visits, we will definitely we going back to Lopez sooner rather than later.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of a glaucous-winged gull at the Orcas Island ferry landing</td></tr>
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Monikahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10442975942250078450noreply@blogger.com0