Day of the Dead ~ 3rd Annual Tribute

This is my third year writing a Day of the Dead blog post to honor the Southern Resident Killer Whales that we've lost during the preceding year. Unfortunately in the last 12 months, we've lost an astounding seven whales.

J48 was the fifth offspring born to J16 Slick. The calf was first seen in December 2011 and was missing the next month. I didn't get to meet this little whale, who in addition to mom left behind three surviving siblings: J26 Mike, J36 Alki, and J42 Echo.

L112 Sooke, born 2009, seen here with L47 Marina, L86 Surprise, and L91Muncher

The death of L112 Sooke remains particularly sad and mysterious. I documented her story in detail in a separate blog post. She washed up on a beach in Long Beach, Washington in February 2012 with blunt force trauma. The exact cause of her death has not been determined, but a necropsy showed that her wounds were not consistent with a ship strike or predation event. Following her death, activities of both the US and Canadian Navy received a lot of scrutiny, from underwater sonar testing to the bomb range that exists off the Washington coast. Hopefully, the result of all this is that additional precautions be put in place to protect this endangered population of whales from underwater noise and explosions that could lead to permanent injury and death. In the near future her skeleton will be on display at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. It is always sad to lose a whale, particularly a young whale, but even more so a young female. L-Pod does not have many juvenile females, without which this population has no chance of recovery. Sooke was one of the few.

J30 Riptide, born 1995, seen here with L53 Lulu and J1 Ruffles

I was shocked when I heard that J30 Riptide had not been seen this spring. J-Pod has always seemed like the most resilient of the three pods, but Riptide is the second young adult male in the pod to die prematurely in recent years (the other was J33 Keet in 2010). Riptide was the second known offspring of J14 Samish and despite being just 16 years old already had a huge dorsal fin that was nearly fully grown. One of the very first pictures I took of Riptide shows him with J1 Ruffles, and the two proved to be regular companions over the years until the death of Ruffles. That's why I chose to honor him with the above picture, showing the two males together in Boundary Pass several years ago. I imagine Riptide must have been learning a lot from the oldest male among the Southern Residents, and it's a shame he won't be able to put the knowledge to use as a breeding adult male. Riptide is the probable great grandson of J2 Granny and also leaves behind three younger siblings.

L12 Alexis, estimated birth year 1933

At an estimated age of 79, Alexis lived the long, fruitful life of a matriarch resident whale. She's the namesake for the L12 subgroup, a well-known portion of L-Pod that tends to spend a lot more time in inland waters than the rest of the Ls. Her strong ties throughout her life with the L28 and L32 matrilines seems to be a key reason these three families travel together so much of the time. She was often associated with both of these mothers as well as with their offspring, and late in her life seemed to have become the adopted mom of L85 Mystery, the son of L28 Misky. The probable grandmother of the iconic male L41 Mega, Alexis, like Mega, also had two notches on her dorsal fin that made her distinct. Earlier this year I wrote a creative piece imagining a day in the life of Alexis where she was surrounded by her extended family. A mainstay throughout my whale watching years and well before that, I had no idea I would never see her again.

L5 Tanya, estimated birth year 1964, seen here with her son L73 Flash diving beside her

Unlike Alexis, L5 Tanya was part of a group of L-Pod whales that does not spend a lot of time in inland waters. As such, I never got to see too much of her, and was always excited when I did as she remained a more unknown whale to me. She only had two known offspring, both sons, and both very distinct males. L58 Sparky was one of the first few whales I learned to identify around the year 2000. He was easy to pick out because this was a time when there were only 3 or 4 fully adult males in the whole population. Her other son, L73 Flash, was a bit of a Ruffles lookalike. Unfortunately both sons preceded Tanya in death. Tanya had a bit of a unique dorsal fin, at least to my now more highly trained eye. The middle of the back trailing edge seemed to bulge out, easily seen in the above photograph where she is silhouetted. She also had a distinct line across one of her saddle patches, and a testament to how rarely I saw her is the fact that I never got a great picture showing this unique marking very well. With her passing, Tanya leaves behind young male L84 Nyssa, her sister's grandson, as the only surviving member of the L9 matriline.

K40 Raggedy, estimated birth year 1963

Raggedy! I still can't believe you are really gone. Talk about a whale with a unique history, of which we only know a very small piece. One of the unknown parts is how she got all those notches that made up the tattered trailing edge of her dorsal fin. I first learned about Raggedy's interesting family when I wondered how she was already numbered the 40th whale in K-Pod when at the time there was no K39, K38, K37, and so on. It turns out this is because she, along with the rest of her family group, were originally designated as L-Pod whales. Before 1977 they were always seen with L-Pod. Then, between 1977 and 1981 they started being seen with Ks, and after 1981 were almost always seen with Ks. Michael Bigg suspected they might be Ks due to their acoustic call types, and in 1986, coinciding with the birth of K21 Cappuccino into this family group, the switch from L to K was officially announced, the only time any whales have had their pod designation changed.

Raggedy's family was our first clue that matrilines are probably more stable than pods, as we've seen other whales and groups of whales seemingly shift pod associations for both short and long lengths of time. While there is a genealogy written out for this group of whales (the K18 and K30 matrilines), it seems the mother-offspring relationships have never really been clear as the family associations were reorganized several times. What is known is that Raggedy was never seen with a calf, leading to speculation that she was probably infertile. 

One of my first-ever whale encounters was with Raggedy and her suspected mom, K18 Kiska, and probable brother K21 Cappuccino. I was aboard the Bon Accord in Haro Strait. The boat was parked as we watched a social multi-pod gathering milling about when we were surprised by three whales that popped up closer to us than all the rest: Kiska, Raggedy, and Cappuccino. This was the first time I had ever been this close to a wild whale, and the video camera I had rolling at the time recorded my frantic, excited comments as Raggedy surfaced right beneath me. "I got wet from the spray!" I called out in a shaky voice. "Oh my God!" There was no going back for me from that moment.

Raggedy leaves behind her stalwart companion Cappuccino. In recent years these two whales have often traveled between pods with K16 Opus and K35 Sonata, continuing the rogue ways of the family group. Early sightings indicate Cappuccino, Opus, and Sonata will carry on the unpredictable tradition in Raggedy's absence.

L78 Gaia, born 1989

L78 Gaia is another whale from a very independent family group: the L2 matriline. At just 23 years old, it also feels like we lost Gaia way too early, but unfortunately he follows a trend of other L-Pod whales that we have recently lost in their 20s. Since 2008, the family group has just been made up of L78 Gaia, mom L2 Grace, and Gaia's younger brother L88 Wavewalker. The three whales were sometimes seen with no other Southern Residents. On one memorable day they were spotted near Lopez Island and initially identified as transients since there were only three of them, though this is a bit hard to believe since all three have distinct open saddle patches that transients never sport.

Gaia was the uncle of L98 Luna, the young whale who somehow got separated from his mom and spent years alone in Nootka Sound off the west side of Vancouver Island. In 2009 Gaia showed up with a wicked scrape on his dorsal fin, a wound so gruesome observers worried it could become infected. He seemed to heal up from this just fine, and it wasn't too long before he had just a faint scar on the front of his dorsal fin. I always thought of Gaia as having a very broad dorsal fin, one that will truly be missed by me among the other L-Pod whales.

So those are the whales we have lost this year - unnamed J48, Sooke, Riptide, Alexis, Tanya, Raggedy, and Gaia. We have had just two new arrivals in that time. L119, a girl, was born to L77 Matia, a calf I was very happy to hear about. Both Matia and her sister L94 Calypso had calves in 2010, but Matia lost hers, and I could only imagine what it was like for her as a bereaved mom to watch her younger sister with a healthy baby. It must have been very bittersweet. Now she has another little youngster of her own, which amazingly I never got to meet this summer. Perhaps an indicator of the shifting patterns as a result of Alexis' death (Matia and Calypso, along with Mega, are also her probable grandchildren), the L12s did not spend nearly as much time doing their regular westside shuffle off of San Juan Island this summer. I saw very little of this family group this year and look forward to seeing both sisters with their healthy calves next year.

The other birth was J49, a boy, born to J37 Hy'shqa. In a rare case of a Southern Resident being born in inland waters, we actually know the birthday of J49 is August 6th, and he was born somewhere around Turn Point on Stuart Island. With his birth, Hy'shqa became the youngest mother on record at just over 11 years old. I was worried about these two whales, since the other young mom I witness (K28 Raven was just 12 when she gave birth to K39 in 2006 ) both perished shortly thereafter. But so far, both mom and calf seem to be doing just fine, and Hy'shqa has lots of help from her extended family. J49 is the first grandchild to productive mother J14 Samish and is also the first great-great grandchild to J2 Granny.

J49, left, seen here at about six weeks old following behind grandmother J14 Samish and uncle J26 Mike

This years births and deaths leave us at 84 whales in the Southern Resident Community. To the ones you have lost, you will be dearly missed, and to those that have arrived, we welcome you and hope you live to see the recovery of this endangered population.

October Orcas (and other Autumn Animals)

With the L2s, L5s, and L54s on the westside yesterday, we decided to go to bundle up against the chilly autumn breeze and head to Lime Kiln to hang out for a while to try and see them. Unwilling to admit that summer is over, we settled in on our favorite rocks to read for a couple hours. The whales were several miles to the north and slowly heading our direction, so the prospect of seeing them made it a little easier to wait. In the meantime, just like on my previous trip to the westside, there was lots of other wildlife to look at. Here's a look at a few of the gull species that are common here in the fall:

Heermann's gull

California gull

Mew gull

The gulls were hanging out hoping to take advantage of some food scraps made available by the foraging harbor seals. It was fun to watch the gulls soaring about 15 feet above the water, and based on their actions it was possible to predict where the seals were going to pop up (presumably the gulls could see the seals underwater). The gulls either didn't see or didn't care about this seal pup that popped up inside the kelp beds off the lighthouse, and I almost missed it as well - it was one of those moments where you wonder who is watching whom?

The careful observe could find a few other bird species, too. A rhinoceros auklet dove in the bay to the north of the lighthouse. A loon flew by, and so did these scoters:

A black oystercatcher also made an uncharacteristically quiet appearance, feeding on snails on the rocks just below the lighthouse:

Eventually the very spread out, very slow moving orcas did show up, foraging as they made their way south. The L12s had just made their way in to the San Juans past Victoria, and Js and Ks were heading north out of Admiralty Inlet, so with all three groups of whales on a collision course I was a little surprised that the group of whales we saw wasn't traveling a little faster to go meet up with everyone else. But, they didn't seem to be in any hurry.

The whale that came closest to shore was L78 Gaia, a big male who looked especially big yesterday:

The last group of whales to come by was L54 Ino and her two youngest offspring, L108 Coho and unnamed calf L117. (For those keeping track, Ino's other son L100 Indigo was there, too, just a little ahead of this trio.) The three of them were actively foraging, doing all kinds of circling and lunging at the surface. It looked like they were successful, because the gulls started doing the same thing to the whales that they had been doing to the seals earlier: hovering up above where they were underwater, and swooping down the surface to pick up scraps of fish. It was fun to watch.

Mama L54 Ino on the left, with calf L117 surfacing in the slipstream of older sibling L108 Coho on the right.

It's common for resident whales to prey share, so presumably Ino was catching fish and sharing them with at least Coho. Some of the circling behavior could have been whales converging to tear up the fish. Since there was so much surface activity, I wonder if Coho was playing with a fish that was still alive, or perhaps the little calf was getting an early training session. How cool it would have been to see what was going on underwater to correspond with all the lunges, rolls, and dives we saw at the surface.

Eventually the whales did continue south, and it wasn't until then that I realized just how chilly I was! It was time to go home and crank the heater in the car on the drive back. Later in the evening, I listened to the whales on the hydrophones for about an hour, and it sounded like all three groups did indeed meet up. Based on the vocalizations alone, they were having quite a superpod party!

Another Summery Week

We've been enjoying another sunny, warm week on San Juan Island, finally getting the summer weather we've long been anticipating! It's made for a pleasant commute to work by bike, outdoor afternoons, west side sunsets, Shakespeare under the stars, and of course: bird and whale watching.

Ravens cavorting above False Bay

I've been seeing as many as 500+ peeps at False Bay, made up mostly of western sandpipers but with some least sandpipers mixed in. It's very cool to see them in such numbers. If there's been anything rarer mixed in, like a semipalmated sandpiper, I haven't been able to find it. But that certainly doesn't mean it's not in there somewhere!

Western sandpiper at False bay

Least sandpiper at False Bay

Just before leaving False Bay one afternoon I spotted a small hawk perched in a tree. I thought at first maybe it was a merlin, but as soon as I got the binoculars on it I saw that it was something else: a sharp-shinned hawk (year bird 189). Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks are notoriously difficult for identifying in the field, but this bird was small, with a small head, thin legs, and, when it flew, quick, erratic wingbeats - all clues it was indeed a sharp-shinned.

Also this week was the San Juan County Fair, a yearly tradition that's a big hit with our local community. In addition to our home-brewed beer winning a blue ribbon, Keith played acoustic guitar for an hour-long set:

Today, I headed out to Lime Kiln hoping to find some whales. It sounded like they were coming down from the north, so I settled in to wait. It was a real surprise when seven whales suddenly came up from the south! It was the L2s and L54s, presumably going north to meet up with the other whales.

L2 Grace and her adult son L78 Gaia

About half an hour later, the whales did come back south. K20 Spock and K38 Comet passed pretty close to shore, while K27 Deadhead and calf K44 were a little further off.

K20 Spock and her seven year-old son K38 Comet

Many whales were way offshore a mile or more, but another big group of whales did pass about 200 yards offshore. IDs were difficult because of the back-lighting, but I saw whales from the J14, L55, L47, and L26 matrilines - if all members of these family groups were there, that would be 23 whales, which seemed about right. 

People wonder sometimes with all the whales I've seen and all the photos I've taken if there's still new shots to be gotten. Of course there is! The whales are always in different groups, doing different things in different places. Here's something I had never seen before - a big male (I believe J30 Riptide) is doing a pec slap as a calf comes to the surface in front of him (click to see a larger view):

There were sort of three groups traveling parallel to one another, each maybe about 50 yards apart. Here's four whales from the "middle" group surfacing together.

Finally, I wanted to announce that next week Saturday, the 27th, I'll be participating in a Northwest Blogger Scavenger Hunt! Or rather, I hope that you will be participating! There are so many great Pacific Northwest blogs, and a few of us, recruited by author Pat Lichen, are banding together in this creative endeavor. On the 27th, a list of questions will be posted on Pat's blog, and the answers will be found on each of the participant's blog sites, including one here on Orca Watcher. Your job is to visit all the blogs, find the correct answers, and submit them by the end of the day of the 27th. In addition to seeing some great photos and reading some interesting writing, all correct answers will be entered in a drawing to win a prize from one of the bloggers. Our hope is that our readers will learn about some of the other interesting blogs out there in a more interesting manner than just off a blog roll, so please come back next Saturday to participate!

Some "Murre" of L-Pod

Okay, okay, really bad pun, but it does describe what I saw today! After a two day absence the Southern Residents made their way back in from the open ocean and on the Western Explorer this morning we met up with L-Pod heading out from Cattle Pass towards Hein Bank.

First of all, though, check out this beauty of a common murre that was not camera shy (or boat shy) at all. There were lots of murres out and about today!

When we got on scene with the whales they were zig-zagging a lot, but we finally found a nice group of about half a dozen animals that had a destination in mind, and we were able to parallel them as they traveled south at a speed of about 7 knots. Closest to us was the 16 year-old male L89 Solstice. It looks like he's starting to get a little bit of a "wave" to his fin, too, kind of like we see on J27 Blackberry:

Solstice belongs to a sub-group of L-Pod known as the L12s who often travel separate from the rest of L-Pod. Several other of these whales were present, too, like Solstice's mom L22 Spirit, but it wasn't until I got home and looked at my photos that I figured out a couple of the other whales we were looking at were L2 Grace and her son L78 Gaia, who are pictured here with a sailboat in the background:

Did you join us on this or another trip with Western Prince? We always appreciate your reviews on Trip Advisor.

Superpod in Georgia Strait

This afternoon on the Western Explorer we headed through the beautiful Canadian Gulf Islands up to the north side of Active Pass in the southern Strait of Georgia where we met up with a superpod (members of all three pods) that had made amazing time booking it north all morning. All the whales except the L5 and L54 matrilines (7 whales) were there, but they were spread out over 5+ miles. Still, we did see whales from J-Pod, K-Pod, and L-Pod.

We got a nice look at the L2 matriline, made up of mom L2 Grace and her two boys L78 Gaia and L88 Wavewalker. From left to right in the photo below is L88, L2, and L78:

About a month ago L78 showed up with some pretty serious rake marks along the front edge of his dorsal fin. They appear to be from another orca. We see rake marks on whales pretty often - probably a result of rough-housing and or disciplining - but I have never seen rake marks as deep or extensive as those Gaia returned with. There has been a lot of speculation as to what he might have done to "deserve" this from another whale....the most interesting theory I've heard is that just before he returned with the rake marks, he and the rest of L-Pod were in an area where some offshore orcas (a completely separate population) were seen. Maybe there was a rough encounter between the two different cultures of orcas that, as far as we know, rarely interact with each other?

The good news is today I was able to tell that Gaia's rake marks are healing nicely. On the left side is a photo of the rake marks on his left side back on July 12th. The rake marks looked similarly severe on both sides, so you can see on the photo on the right how much they have healed based on a photo from today, where the marks are fading. As always, click on a photo to get a larger view:

There was another family group of whales traveling with the L2 matriline, and while I wasn't able to determine who they were in person, from my photos I was able to see it was J27 Blackberry and his two younger siblings J31 Tsuchi and J39 Mako. This is interesting because at the time we were under the impression all of J-Pod was up ahead about five miles, so I guess in reality the whales were "all mixed up"! Here is male J27 on the left and male L78 Gaia on the right:

The last group coming out of Active Pass was K-Pod, and our last look of the day was of a group of four K-Pod whales traveling off separate from the rest of the pod. The left two whales are 46 year-old female K40 Raggedy and her 23 year-old brother K21 Cappuccino. The right two whales are 24 year-old female K16 Opus and her 7 year-old son K35 Sonata:

Did you join us on this or another trip with Western Prince? We always appreciate your reviews on Trip Advisor.