September 1st and 2nd: Three Transient Encounters in Two Days

The end of August and beginning of September have been even crazier for transient killer whales in the Salish Sea in a season where sightings have already been off the charts. For a couple days we had Ts in as many as a dozen places throughout the Salish Sea, with multiple groups in Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. By my rough count there were at least 60 whales in the area! Luckily a few of them did pass through the San Juan Islands and within our range as well.

On September 1st, the T60s along with T124A1 and the T124Ds made their way up Haro Strait. Jason and I just missed them at Lime Kiln but heard they were close to shore, so we quickly hopped in the boat and met up with them just north of County Park. I was super excited when it looked like they might go through Mosquito Pass, the narrow channel between San Juan and Henry Islands. Ts go through there occasionally and it's a place I've dreamed of seeing whales. These guys got partway in, and then seemed to second guess themselves. I'm anthropomorphizing here, but it looked like they were just cruising along when they got surprised by how narrow/shallow of a channel they were in, and then they had to have a little powwow to decide how to proceed.

Uh...do we really want to go this way?

All the boats including us were positioned to the outside of the pass, ready to follow behind them as they made their way through. Once they decided to abort continuing on, however, their direction change ended up taking them right through all the boats, giving us and everyone else a memorable head-on look as they aimed for Kellett Bluff.

After another detour deep into Open Bay, they followed the Henry Island shoreline for a while. We left them when they made another sharp turn to aim across Haro into Canadian waters.

T60C sets course for Canada

The next day, September 2nd, we got a surprise early afternoon report that another group of transients had appeared out of nowhere off Lime Kiln. Having again missed them from shore, we again headed to the boat, and again caught up with them not far from Mitchell Bay. It was the T65As and T100s, and at first they were traveling together in one mixed group.

Just north of Henry Island, however, they split into their respective matrilines. The T65As headed inshore, and we briefly followed the T100s as they continued north up Haro.

The T100s

The T100s off Battleship Island

As the T100s continued north, we headed in towards the T65As who were angling towards Spieden Island. At first it looked like they might take Spieden Channel, but instead they cut around the west edge of the island and took New Channel. This area, that we call the "back side" of Spieden, is a magical spot to see whales. The island has a steep cliff and is all forested on this side, with no developments. It makes a perfect backdrop for backlit blows, like we saw on this afternoon.

T65A2

More of the T65As

Later in the evening, after having been on the water and in general spending a lot of the day running around, yet another report of transients on the west side came in. I'll share here what I wrote when I got home from this encounter, adding in some photos:

A snapshot of my life: I'm at home and tired from a day of running around when a friend lets me know a group of transient killer whales is on the west side of San Juan Island heading south and hugging the shoreline. I'm at the wrong end of the island to try and see them, but to get those magic moments, you learn early on: if you can go, go.

When I get to my first stop at the south end some visitors let me know they've just seen whales pass by, which means I've missed them. I speed walk back to my car and try another spot further down the coast. I see the blows and a couple whale watch boats offshore. They're way further out than before but at least I see them. I settle down on a rock content to take in the sunset and collect what data I can from a distance. The other people beside me head back to their car, the final whale watch boat takes off to their home port, and the whales disappear for a moment offshore as the sun sinks towards the horizon. It sounds like a tranquil scene, and it was, for a moment.

The T36Bs and T99s offshore under the Olympic Mountains

  

Then I spot the whales again, and now they're all in a line aiming right at me. Even from a distance and even after all these years seeing seven dorsal fins all lined up at the surface takes my breath away.

They continue coming closer to shore, directly where I'm sitting, when they go on their long dive. Which way are they going to go now, up or down the beach? I had taken my shoes off but I put them back on. There's only one thing that can get me to run and I have a feeling I'm about to.

Indeed, the whales surface to my left, aiming right for the Cattle Point Lighthouse and right off the kelp beds off the beach. Let's just say I'm glad no one was their to witness my scrambling after them, though I assure you it was graceful, as I tried to take photos, run, and not lose lens cap, pen, data sheet, keys, cell phone, or sweatshirt, not aided at all by the ridiculously shallow pockets that are always in women's shorts.

I was a little bit behind them, but close enough to follow them around the corner as they cut a sharp turn right by the lighthouse and into Cattle Pass. I went as far as I could on the trail, then sat down to watch them continue on their way in the dimming light. Before making the long trek back to my car (did I really run this far?) I was surprised by a pair of fox kits, saw three deer silhouetted on the top of the hill behind me, and was passed by a bald eagle carrying the remains of a salmon to a nighttime roost. Oh, then on the way home I had to stop to take a photo of an owl.

It's a charmed life, I know, and I'm thankful for it every single day.

A Transient Superpod - on February 10th!

My blog posts have fallen off in the last month, and that was directly correlated to our dismal weather (nearly three weeks straight of rain) and poor wildlife sightings. That's all turning around in a hurry, however, as I've had two amazing killer whale encounters this week, a real surprise and treat for February!

On Tuesday afternoon I jumped aboard the Western Explorer with a few fellow naturalists after hearing there was a group of orcas heading for San Juan Channel. We barely left Friday Harbor when we saw them. With initial reports of 10-12 whales, we weren't sure who we were going to encounter, but with the very first dorsal fin I saw I knew they weren't Southern Residents! This is the whale I saw, who turned out to be T100C:

13 year-old male T100C

This family group was the T100s, who I last saw in 2008. Interestingly enough they were involved the first time I saw a transient "superpod" of several family groups totaling over 15 whales.

T100C seven years ago in the Strait of Juan de Fuca....awww, he's grown so much!!

The T100s weren't the only ones present today, either, as while they were the leaders, we could see at least two more groups of whales behind them! The T100s were going up the middle of the channel. Further towards the east side of the channel we found the T124As.

31 year-old mama T124A followed by two of her offspring, T124A5 (a year old) and T1242 (14 years old)

Across the channel to the west were more blows illuminated by the sun (the sun! as rare of a sight as the orcas so far in 2015). The T124s and T86As!

16 year-old male T124E - look at the height on those blows!

If you're wondering about the matriline names, T124A is indeed the first offspring of T124. But since she's an adult female with her own offspring, she's split off and regularly travels away from the other T124s, which is not uncommon in transients. Today, though, the whole extended family was together!

In the wake of this western group of Ts we saw a huge oil slick in the water and lots of gulls actively picking scraps off the surface of the water. The whales continued north, so we drifted closer to investigate, and we could smell the remnants of the kill....it actually smelled like watermelon! I found out from a researcher friend of mine that this smell is associated with porpoise kills, and judging by the size of the oil slick I was pretty sure they had killed something larger than a harbor seal, so this all matched up!

Gull comes down to grab a meat morsel - the sheen you see on the water is oil from a harbor porpoise

As we moved to catch up with the whales, the groups were starting to converge. We caught sight of a beautiful line-up as a bunch of whales surfaced in synchrony:

From left to right: T124A1, T86A1, T124D, T124D1 (less than a year old!), T86A

Let's get a closer look at that little baby...

T124D with her first calf T124D1, and on the right is T86A

T124D1

As cumbersome as a name as T124D1 is, it contains his/her matrilineal history right in its name, which is handy for keeping track of transients who are more fluid in their social associations. T124D1 is the first offspring born to T124D, who was the fourth offspring (A, B, C, D) born to T124.

The lighting was just amazing for seeing the blows all day - this is another shot of T86A, T124D, and T124D1

In this whole group of over 20 Ts, there was only one adult male - it was almost all females and juveniles. In fact, at least seven of them were under 10 years old! Perhaps it was time for the little ones to learn about harbor porpoise hunting or maybe this is just what family meal time looks like, but all the whales converged and were prey sharing. There was lots of converging at the surface and surface activity - it was clear we were only seeing part of the picture as they tore up and shared the meat!

When we see Southern Residents in these roly-poly surface groups we sometimes call them "cuddle puddles" (sometimes social in nature, the residents are probably prey sharing in some of these instances too); in this case, where the surface activity was accompanied by the occasional splash of blood or glimpse of red meat, the name "carnage cluster" seemed more appropriate.

What's the best angle to get a bite....right side up? From the left?

Upside down from the right?

Or perhaps straight down from the top?

They were converging on it from all sides....

Look carefully in the middle - the pinkish red is porpoise meat (click to see a larger version)

Every once and a while amid the tail-slapping we'd see a tiny tail pop up. With two calves a year old or less, we thought at first it was a baby orca tail, til someone pointed out it was a little too small even for that. Turns out we were seeing the porpoise tail being waved up into the air by the whales!

The T124s, T124As, and T86As were all together in this group, while the T100s were on the opposite side of the boat. Again with the amazing lighting....

Turns out the T100s took out another porpoise of their own. This is one them (maybe T100B?) carrying a porpoise in its mouth - the blip you see at the front of its head is the porpoise fluke sticking out:

Oh, which way to look? (Such a problem to have, I know.) Maybe it was time to celebrate the kills?

The fun thing about days like this is that they only people out there are total whale fanatics like myself. In addition to my friends on our boat, there were three other boats on scene - all of them just captains, naturalists, and/or whale researchers.

Friends on another boat, doin' what we do

It was time for us to head back, and right before we left it looked like the whales shifted into travel mode as well. Given that they were headed to Spieden Channel I figured my whale-watching day might not be done just yet - my boat is moored not far from there! After returning to Friday Harbor I jetted over to the other side of the island where I met up with some different friends and we took Serenity out. We caught up with the whales again northwest of Battleship Island. The T100s were already several miles ahead, but all the rest were in one big group. No more hunting or playing - it was clearly travel time now.

T124A (left) and T124C (right)

Four year-old T86A3 with the Turn Point Light Station in the background

It was such a beautiful sight to see them all traveling in such a tight group that it was hard to leave, but they were cruising at such a fast pace all too soon it was time to let them continue on into Canada alone. One last nice look:

T124C - regular blog readers may remember this was the lone male (kinda a short guy for an adult male) I saw in Georgia Strait in May - see more photos of him here.

I went home grinning and with over 700 photos to sort through, ready to ride this whale "high" for several weeks if necessary til my next encounter, because this time of year especially you just never know. Little did I know at the time that I was just 48 hours away from another fantastic whale afternoon, this time with Southern Residents!