Day of the Dead ~ 2nd Annual Tribute

Last year on November 2nd, the Day of the Dead, I wrote a blog post honoring the Southern Resident Killer Whales that we had lost during the preceding year. I'd like to make this an annual tradition, so here's my second annual Dia de Los Muertos tribute.

J1 Ruffles, estimated birth year 1950

I've already written extensively about Ruffles in a blog post that you can read here, and also honored him with a photo gallery that you can see here. It's still hard to believe that this iconic whale is no longer with us. Seeing J-Pod this year just wasn't the same without the distinct, wavy fin of Ruffles, probably one of if not the most photographed Southern Resident whale. Because of the ease of identifying him, he was especially popular with tourists, many of whom would come back after years of being away and ask about Ruffles. He was also known among local naturalists as "the man", in part because he was the oldest male (by far) in the Southern Resident community. His reputation for being a ladies' man (ladies' whale?) was substantiated by recent genetic research that showed him to be the father of quite a few young whales in the community.

L7 Canuck, estimated birth year 1961

When I think of Canuck, an L-Pod whale, the first thing I think of is how she often traveling with J-Pod. For several years in a row it seemed that she, along with her daughter L53 Lulu and adult male L57 Faith, would spend the winters with their closest relatives in L-Pod but spend the summers traveling with J-Pod. In the last couple of years this pod switching and fragmenting has become more common, but at the time it was especially notable for females to be traveling with a different pod. Canuck seemed to have a strong affiliation with both J1 Ruffles and J2 Granny in J-Pod, so perhaps in the absence of strong connections with other whales in her own pod, she and her daughter spent more time with these elder Js.

Canuck and Lulu were inseparable, and from 1987 onwards made up the extent of their immediate living matriline.  Canuck only ever had one other known calf that didn't survive its first year of life, though its possible she had other offspring before the whales were studied in detail starting in 1976. Despite their very small family, it seems Canuck and Lulu found somewhat of a surrogate family member in Faith, who was the only living member of his own matriline since his mother L45 Asterix passed away in 1995. Faith seemed to enjoy traveling with the eligible J-Pod bachelorettes, but perhaps he found the mother figure he was lacking in Canuck. Often, adult males don't live too long after their own mother passes away unless they latch on to another older female to help fill that role.

In the Center for Whale Research's genealogy guide, they have L43 Jellyroll as a possible sister to Canuck. Jellyroll, who died in 2006, has two living offspring in L72 Racer and L95 Nigel, who would be Canuck's niece and nephew. It's funny, when I think back on my whale encounters, I wouldn't have said Canuck spent much time with them, but when I look through my notes I find otherwise. I list them as either traveling with or near the L43s quite often when the rest of L-Pod is present.

Regardless of which pod Canuck was traveling with, she was always an easy whale to pick out from a crowd because of her distinct notch about a third of the way down her dorsal fin. From my perspective, that made it easier for me to follow her movements and social associations over the years, because she could be easily identified on sight as well as in photos, and even in poor lighting where her saddle patch wasn't visible. It will be interesting to see how Lulu does in the coming years without her mother, and whether she continues the relationship with the J-Pod whales her mother began or goes back to spending more time with her extended L-Pod family.

It is sad to lose these two whales, but others have been born and have started their own journeys as Southern Resident Killer Whales. This year we welcomed K44, a son born to first-time mom K27 Deadhead; L117, born at the end of 2010 to L54 Ino; and L118 born to L55 Nugget.

A Tribute to J1 ~ Ruffles

The most iconic whale in the Southern Resident Community of killer whales has been missing since November 2010. J1, nicknamed Ruffles for his wavy dorsal fin, has been the most recognizable whale in this population since it was first determined whales could be individually identified in the early 1970s. When they first started the photo ID study of these orcas, Ruffles was already a full adult male, leading researchers to estimate his birth date as 1950. This means that last year, at the age of 60, he was by far the oldest male among J-, K- and L-Pods. In truth, he could have been even older. This is especially remarkable when you consider that many other male killer whales die in their 20s and 30s.

Since Ruffles' family has been seen often since last November, it is likely that he has passed away. It has taken me a while to write about his passing because it's a difficult thing to process. When I worked on a whale-watching boat, many return visitors remembered Ruffles and wanted to see him again. Others, first time whale-watchers, had heard about him and knew he was one whale they wanted to see. It seems like everyone in the whale world has at least one good Ruffles story.

J1 Ruffles coming to the surface, as seen from the top of Lime Kiln Lighthouse in 2005

I first met Ruffles in the year 2000, and unlike most people I don't remember the first time I saw him. My natural affinity was with J2, Granny, Ruffles near-constant companion and potentially his mother. Still, he has been a continual presence in J-Pod since I came to knew these whales, and it seems like there is a hole now that he is gone. He and Granny together made such an impression on me that I painted a mural of them in our houseboat, and I sit underneath them every time I write a blog post. It's not quite accurate to say Ruffles was a friend, but for each whale encounter of mine over the last decade he has been a friendly presence, and I'm sad now that he is gone.

J1 Ruffles in the middle with J2 Granny (right) and K12 Sequim (left)

While I have been lucky enough to have some close encounters with Ruffles over the years, my most lasting image of him is from far away. I picture him surfacing far offshore, his towering dorsal fin easily visible from a mile or more away. He had a characteristic way of surfacing: slow, deliberate, with a strong thrust of his flukes as he dove that caused the last visible tip of his dorsal fin to lurch forward just before it disappeared. When the rest of J-Pod was tightly grouped or closer to shore, he might be off on his own, almost as if standing guard.

Of course Ruffles wasn't always by himself. He often hung out with the young males; I think I've seen him traveling in close association with every J-Pod adult and sub-adult male. Everyone sort of thought of Ruffles as "the man" of the Southern Residents, and this view was somewhat substantiated with some genetic paternity research that was recently done on this population. It turns out that Ruffles was the father of quite a few whales, not only in K- and L-Pods, but even in J-Pod. This threw the assumption that whales only mate outside their own pod out the window. I always thought of Ruffles hanging out with these young males as being a tutoring session - maybe he was passing on his knowledge about being such a successful and long-lived orca.

J1 with a sub-adult male, J30 Riptide, in 2005

I really felt better equipped to honor Ruffles with a photo tribute, so I went through my hundreds of pictures of the big guy and put my favorite 25 Ruffles images in a photo gallery. I always knew he associated a lot with Granny and the young males, but one thing I never really noticed until I went through my photos was how much time Ruffles spent with some of the older females from the other pods, as well. I have a lot of pictures of him with K12 Sequim (born in 1970) and also with L7 Canuck (born in 1961).

There are a lot of sightings local naturalists covet and regularly swap notes on. Have you seen a tufted puffin this year? Taken a photo of a breaching whale with Mt. Baker in the background? These types of things earn you "street cred" among your peers, and another one to add to the list is having seen Ruffles breach. He wasn't known for being super active at the surface, and breaches in particular were a rarity. It's something I only saw him do on two occasions. The first time was when I was volunteering on Soundwatch years ago, and let me tell you, even though we were a ways away, he made our small blue boat feel even smaller. The second time was last year, when he and Granny were way ahead of the rest of J-Pod and slowly traveling north. On that day he breached three times in a row, and I was quick enough to get some photos. As big as he normally looks, I always think he looks surprisingly slender from this angle:

With Ruffles passing on, the oldest male among the Southern Residents is now 34 year-old L41 Mega. When I first started getting to know these whales, they were experiencing a scary bottleneck in adult males, with only four in the entire population. L58 Sparky died, leaving only three for quite some time (Ruffles, Mega, and L57 Faith, who has also passed on). Luckily, in part due to Ruffles' successful fathering of calves over the years, we now have about 10 adult males, with many more "sprouter" males on the way.

On one hand, Ruffles lived a very long and successful life for a male orca, and the deaths of some of our young males (like L73 Flash and L74 Saanich last year) is sadder in that it means something is happening to keep our breeding age males from surviving as long as Ruffles did. On the other hand, though, he is so well known to me and many others, that his loss is incredibly sad, too. I'll miss you, big guy.

Please feel free to share your own memories of Ruffles in the comment section....I would love to hear them.

Js (and the L12s!) Off the Pender Islands

Lately I have seen a lot of jumping fish in the area - both large salmon and smaller bait fish. The word is the fish runs are strong this year and that is great news for all the local marine wildlife. In the last few days I have seen many bait balls and multiple minke whales, which are undoubtedly enjoying the schooling fish. Here is one rhinoceros auklet I saw today:

The good salmon runs are likely responsible for the fact that orca sightings continue to be fantastic. This afternoon we headed north and caught up with J-Pod just as they passed Turn Point and started crossing Boundary Pass. With the beautiful clear weather this made for some great photo-ops with Mt. Baker in the background. This shot shows J1 Ruffles in the foreground:

We followed the whales across Boundary Pass to the Pender Islands in Canada. They were spread out over a couple of miles but the first group we spent time with included J1 Ruffles, J2 Granny, and the entire J14 family group. As I scanned the waters it seemed reasonable to assume we had most if not all of J-Pod in the area. Next we came across J8 Spieden:

J8 Spieden was rolling around on the surface with a male, who I thought was J26 Mike. Nearby were J19 Shachi and J41 Eclipse, so at the time it seemed like we still had just J-Pod whales in the area. Not so! After I got home and looked at my photos closer, I noticed that L12 Alexis was traveling right with J19 Shachi. That made me doubt my original ID, and sure enough it turns out the male playing with J8 Spieden was actually L79 Skana! So at least some L-Pod whales were there too! Here's L79 Skana, who was right behind J8 Spieden, at time swimming upside down underneath her:

It's never safe to make assumptions when it comes to the whales, because as soon as you think you know what they're going to do they do something completely different and surprise you. I'm still puzzling over some of my photos to figure out who all was there today!

For a while we continued to follow the whales slowly north, and several of them were right along the shoreline maybe just yards from shore. Before it was time for us to leave, however, a few of them pulled a little further offshore and started getting much more active, which was a great joy to watch. Here is L79 Skana surfacing in front of another male doing an inverted tail slap:

I recently posted a sequence of photos showing a female whale spyhopping followed shortly thereafter by her calf. Today we saw one better, a mom and calf spyhopping simultaneously! I think it was J35 Talequah and her first-born calf J47:

The last group of whales we saw came by at high speed, porpoising out of the water and creating huge splashes. I think this whale is L85 Mystery:

On the way home we passed what looked like it may have been a wildfire on Stuart Island, and a little later we saw a fire boat heading out that way. I hope everything is okay out there!

Sunday July 18th - Js with a big group of surprise Ls

I'm still without internet at home, so my posts continue to be delayed. I'll get photos up from Wednesday's trip as soon as possible - hopefully tomorrow!

On Sunday when we headed out in the morning aboard the Western Prince, we expected to find J-Pod, who we had been seeing a lot of lately. When we got up into Boundary Pass we were surprised to see many more whales, and it turned out most of L-Pod was also present!

The first whales we saw were J17 Princess Angeline and her calf J44

L53 Lulu and her mom L7 Canuck, who had been traveling with J-Pod, were socializing with some of their fellow L-Pod members. Here they are following behind L72 Racer:

The whales were in several large social groups and did some playing around at the surface, including this spyhop:

I was also happy to see L84 Nyssa, who I hadn’t seen yet this year. He was traveling near his closest living relative, L5 Tanya, and their whole family group has been pretty scarce this year.

In the afternoon we met up with the same whales further south where they were spread out over several miles. The group we spent most of our time viewing was an interesting combination of J and L-Pod whales. From J-Pod we saw J1 Ruffles, J2 Granny, J8 Spieden, and J26 Mike, who were traveling with L54 Ino and her two sons L100 Indigo and L108 Coho as well as L26 Baba and her offspring L90 Ballena and L92 Crewser. Here is L54 Ino giving a tail slap with four year-old L108 Coho just behind her:

The male in this photo is J26 Mike, and the female behind him is 77 year-old J8 Spieden:

We also got several great looks at Ruffles. In this photo you can really see how he got his name with that wavy fin:

The whales were so spread out that we ran into several other groups as we were making our way slowly back towards Friday Harbor, and at one point we stopped to get a great look at L82 Kasatka. We could see another whale swimming upside down underneath her, but it never surfaced nearby so we couldn’t see who she was traveling with.

July 17th - A Foggy Morning With Js

This post is from Saturday morning's trip - a bit delayed because I'm switching internet providers at home and have been without internet for a few days. If you are looking for pictures from Sunday's trips, I will get them up tomorrow, when hopefully I will be back up and running! To answer Dave's question from the morning of the 17th, though - yes, we do see whales in the fog!

I normally associate foggy mornings with August, but we’ve already had several foggy days so far this July. It was pretty patchy fog today, so as we cruised up San Juan Channel we were enjoying the sunshine, and when we got near the whales at first we got to watch them emerging from the fog, which was neat. As they continued north towards us, however, the fog seemed to follow them and soon we were encircled with fog too!

Some people might think viewing whales in the fog is less fun than in the sun, but we actually have some pretty spectacular encounters with the whales in the fog and in addition to providing conditions for some interesting photographs to me it always make the experience seem almost more magical.

Today we caught up with part of J-Pod and the first whales we saw were J1 Ruffles, J2 Granny, and the J14 family group. Here from left to right are J1 Ruffles, J14 Samish, and J30 Riptide:

L7 Canuck and L53 Lulu were also nearby, as they have seemingly switched back to hanging out with J-Pod for a while after hanging with other L-Pod whales earlier in the season. L7 Canuck did a series of big tail slaps:

In addition to the whales, there were a lot of rhinoceros auklets around. I wonder how these and other sea birds, that normally fly just over the surface of the water, manage to navigate through the fog without hitting anything?

While watching the whales we heard several different ships sounding their fog horns, and eventually one would appear from the mists. Here is the Washington State Ferry Chelan coming across Haro Strait in the fog.

Before we left we saw the whales do quite a few spyhops. Normally we’ll just see a single spyhop here and there, so it was unusual to see several sequences of spyhops by different whales. I wonder what they make of trying to see through the foggy air? This spyhop was by J2 Granny:

On the way back to Friday Harbor we went through Spieden Channel, where we were again in the sunshine. The clearer conditions allowed us to see multiple bald eagles soaring over Spieden Island. We also went by Sentinel Island where there were lots of harbor seals hauled out. We are now in the middle of the pupping season and many females have little pups right next to them. There are two in this photo.

4th of July Fireworks ~ Orca Style

The Fourth of July holiday weekend is always the busiest of the year in Friday Harbor, and this year was no exception. With a wedding to attend and a couple of long work days I haven't even had time to look at my photos, let alone blog, until now! Luckily the whales continued to hang around and we saw them on both trips yesterday aboard the Western Prince.

In the morning we met up with part of J-Pod two miles south of Turn Point. As soon as we got on scene we had a great pass by J1 Ruffles, the oldest male in the Southern Resident community at an estimated 59 years of age.

It's always great to see him, and nearby was J2 Granny, the oldest female at an estimated 99 years old. As we watched them slowly make their way north we had little idea what was in store for us! It started with a huge belly-flop breach by Ruffles, who I often describe as a stoic whale that doesn't often participate in a lot of surface behaviors. In fact, before yesterday, I had only ever seen him breach once before. Of course my camera wasn't ready, but he gave me another chance as over the next half hour he breached six times!! Here are two of my favorite shots from a couple of the breaches:

Ruffles seemed to get some of the other older whales going as Granny, in the distance, gave two huge cartwheels. Before we left we saw J33 Keet and 77 year old female J8 Spieden coming along, and Spieden gave a huge water-clearing breach too! People often ask if the older whales slow the group down and I explain that often they're actually out in front leading the way. Today Ruffles, Granny, and Spieden showed that they are alive and well, and still going strong!

On our afternoon trip we met up with a different part of J-Pod who have been traveling with a couple of K-Pod whales. The swells had picked up a little bit which made IDs a little difficult, but there were probably at least six or seven whales traveling together in this group. At first they seemed to be lazily milling about, but then they grouped up and started to get a little more active. This male gave a series of tail slaps, generating some huge splashes:

J34 Doublestuf, a twelve year-old male, was doing a lot of rolling around at the surface with a female whale that we weren't able to get an ID on. It was fun to watch them, as you would see a dorsal fin here, a tail there, and then a pec fin or a belly as they continued to hang out and play around.

Despite all the fantastic orca sightings of late it's never just about the whales and we always have other wildlife to look at as well. The beginning of July always marks the start of the harbor seal pupping season in local waters and this week we've seen our first pups of the year hauled out next to their mothers. This one lifted its head to give us a curious look while it's mother paid us no mind:

We passed a group of a half-dozen harbor seals hauled out on Spieden Island, and when a bald eagle flew overhead and landed on the cliff above them they barely even looked up. Suddenly a river otter hopped out of the water right next to the seals and ran right by them into a hole in the rocks, and that certainly got their attention as all the seals bolted into the water!

In terms of bird sightings, in addition to several eagles we saw a pair of black oystercatchers, several flocks of rhinoceros auklets, and a group of 20 or so Canada geese on Green Point. We also saw this pigeon guillemot in Spieden Channel, and I like this photo because to me the water looks like something out of a painting instead of a reflection of the island and sky above:

The Friday Harbor fireworks at night were a great ending to the day, but all the orca "fireworks" were my highlight on this 4th of July!

Hanging with Whales at Kellett Bluffs

It was another summer-like October day in the San Juans, with a full boat aboard the Western Prince as we headed out in the sunshine to see members of all three pods on the west side of San Juan Island. We first met up with the whales near Lime Kiln lighthouse where they were grouped up and traveling close to shore heading north. We moved up to Kellett Bluffs further north where the whales often pull a little more offshore, and basically just hung out there as different groups of whales slowly passed us by.

First, not surprisingly as they're often in the lead, were J1 Ruffles and J2 Granny. Here is Ruffles:

The whales seemed to be in "travel mode" until some of them started doing tail slaps:

Then we had an amazing encounter with J26 Mike and his younger sister J36 Alki. They were circling off to the side of the boat, as they stopped to do a bit of foraging. Here is Mike as he passed off our bow. He's got a distinct open saddle patch, which makes him pretty easy to identify:

He lifted his head out of the water a few times before arching down on a dive. It's not often you see an orca in this position:

Here's Alki on the left and Mike on the right, circling around and foraging:

Mike did a couple of SPECTACULAR lunges. He nearly cleared the water on this one. It was difficult to know where he was going to come up next, so getting him centered in the photo was impossible. I'm still pleased with these shots that, if not perfect, capture the action:

One thing that was really amazing was how little of a splash he created when he re-entered the water. When a whale breaches, the splash is huge. Today, while foraging, he dove nose-first which helped him to enter the water "cleanly". They must have caught something because Jeanne, who was also on board, said in some of her photos she could make out blood on the surface!

J-Pod Near East Point

Once we get into October, the whales may start to spend more time out of the area, so I feel like every encounter is a special one. I myself hadn't seen them for more than a week, so yesterday when I heard that J-Pod was heading south from the Vancouver area, I decided to hop out on the Western Prince. It turned out to be a very good decision!!

We met up with the whales a few miles north of East Point and they were traveling in tight groups. It was one of those times where you get beautiful surfacings with lots of dorsal fins together. I love photos with so many whales at the surface together, and I don't know what it has been this year but its something I've seen a lot. Here's one of my favorites:

The group closest to us included J1 Ruffles, J2 Granny, and J8 Spieden, the three oldest whales in J-Pod who often travel together. With them was J14 Samish and three of her offspring (adult male J30 Riptide, juvenile J40 Suttles, and calf J45). Another young male, J33 Keet, was also in the same group.

From left to right, J2 Granny, calf J45, mom J14 Samish, and J30 Riptide

Oh yes, and don't forget the honorary J-Pod members, L7 Canuck and her daughter L53 Lulu, who never seem to be too far from Ruffles. L53 Lulu is the female on the left in the photo below. This is also a nice comparison of Riptide and Ruffles. When you see Riptide on his own, he looks huge, but when compared to Ruffles, you can tell he still has a little growing to do:

This next shot I love because it captures how close-knit these families are. The four whales in this photo are so close to each other, surrounding the young calf J45. The beautiful layered hills of the Canadian Gulf Islands are in the background:

For some reason there are certain areas where the whales tend to get really active at the surface. One such place is when they are approaching East Point, and yesterday afternoon was no exception. It was one of the most spectacular displays of surface behaviors I have ever seen, as the whales were doing everything from spyhops and tail slaps to cartwheels and breaches. I wonder what the whales are thinking when all this is going on?! They certainly seemed as excited as their human observers on this occasion. Check out this double tail slap by mom and calf:

There is no other way to describe what L53 Lulu was doing than to say she went ballistic. This is something I've only seen once before, where a whale starts doing tail slaps so fast you can't even see her tail moving, all you see is the huge fan of water she's kicking up. It looks more like the result of a breach, but that whole splash is from her tail!

I always wonder what it's like underwater when the whales are doing all these surface behaviors in such close proximity to each other. Sometimes it looks like a whale is tail slapping right into the face of another whale, or that a breaching whale must practically land on another whale underwater. Right after the crazy tailslapping Lulu breached. Here is the result of one breach that happened right near where Ruffles was surfacing:

The whales were still traveling at this point, but you could see splashes here and there, near and far, as they erupted a the surface in a flurry of activity. Here is a whale doing a half-breach between Ruffles and Granny:

All of a sudden, when we hit the Boiling Reef tide rip, the whales fanned out into small groups of 1-3 animals and started foraging. At one point the captain estimated they were spread from Patos Island to East Point and from Skipjack Island to Monarch Head. It got a little harder to keep track of them all as they milled about and went down for longer dives. For a while we had Ruffles foraging near the boat, lunging in different directions as he presumably pursued a salmon.

J31 Tsuchi and J37 Hyshq'a, two young females from different matrilines, were still frolicking a little bit at the surface and ended up swimming right between us and the Patos Lighthouse:

I had to save the best for last. Here is my prized shot of the day, a beautiful breach by L7 Canuck, who was not to be outdone but her very active daughter:

It was such an awesome encounter with J-Pod, as we got to see a little bit of everything from them traveling in tight groups to "going crazy" with surface behaviors to them being spread out and foraging. When it was time to go there suddenly seemed like there were no whales in sight. We saw Ruffles and Granny backtracking towards Patos Island, and we heard later they were back in the north end of Rosario Strait. I've never seem them turn and go down Rosario after "committing" by making the turn at East Point, but it's unclear exactly where they went during the night before showing up on the westside of the island again this morning. It sure is great to have them around for another October!