April 3rd and 4th in Monterey

The last few weeks have been full of so many amazing sights throughout my travels that the blog posts will be a bit piecemeal, but I really wanted to post some photos from a few days we spent in Monterey where I got to visit the fantastic Monterey Bay Aquarium and see California transients on a whale-watching trip.

They Monterey Bay Aquarium is a place that does it right. They don't hold any pinnipeds or cetaceans in captivity but have extensive stunning exhibits and provide excellent information; it's not hard to spend an entire day there. They also maintain the excellent Seafood Watch program, which are the best reference for making sure you're eating sustainable seafood in any US region. I took the RicohGR along and here are some of my favorite shots from the day:

The jellyfish exhibit is always one of the highlights

While the colors are amazing, I think some of the photos look pretty stunning in black and white too!

A glimpse into what a bait ball might look like from underwater

The two-story kelp forest exhibit

Clown fish with anemone in the coral reef exhibit

Staghorn hermit crab

With so many reports of orcas in Monterey Bay over the preceding days, and having woke up with a good feeling about the day, we decided at the last minute to go out whale watching from Moss Landing with Sanctuary Cruises. Good choice! Even just leaving the harbor we saw a ton of wildlife including a variety of birds, harbor seals, sea otters, and an abundance of California sea lions.

As we cruised offshore we came across several humpback whales, the first of which fluked nicely for us.

After one dive, as we waited for the whale to resurface, we were surprised when it lunged upside down right off the port-side bow!

On the next surfacing we got a great look at the humpback's double blow holes:

A bit further on we spent some time with a pair of humpbacks traveling together:

We started motoring away from these guys when the captain learned another boat in the area had spotted orcas! Not too far away were about half a dozen whales, a group of California transients. These orcas are considered part of a different population than the West Coast transients we regularly see in the Salish Sea, though the populations do have some overlapping territory and have occasionally been seen to intermix. In fact, the whales we saw - known as Emma's group after the distinct female CA140 Emma - were seen in the Strait of Juan de Fuca on January 8th before first being spotted in Monterey this season on February 21st. Here's my first photo of a California transient:

I've dreamed of seeing orcas in Monterey Bay, and while sightings have been especially good in recent weeks, I felt incredibly lucky to have seen them. (While of course the very next day they got to witness this same group of whales take down a gray whale calf - which would have been amazing to see - the orcas were gone entirely for several days after that.) We heard they had just finished feeding on a long-beaked common dolphin (a species I still have yet to see!) and when we got there instead of stopping to play after feasting they were clearly on the move. It's a whole different challenge watching and trying to keep up with the whales in the open ocean, especially since it was a pretty choppy day! We were still graced with a few excellent looks as the captain did his best to keep up with them.

They were mostly in travel mode, but we did get to see two huge spyhops - I captured one here, in my favorite photo from the day:

All too soon it was time to say goodbye and head back to port, although at that point it was a relief to move with the waves and wind rather than into them!

We saw a couple more sea otters on our way back to the slip, concluding an awesome few hours on the water!

California Trip Wrap-Up

Going through my trip photos one more time, I found a few other things I wanted to share that didn't quite fit into my other blog posts about the trip. The first is this beautiful marine mammal quilt that is on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Click to see a larger version and admire each individual square. How cool would a blanket like this be to have?

Before the hockey game in San Jose (hard to believe that was a week ago today - it already seems so much longer ago!) we had time to explore the waterfront near Santa Cruz. This is the Santa Cruz Lighthouse - although there were no signs there that we could find telling us the name of it:

Right in front of the lighthouse that morning they were having a kayak surfing competition. It was a pretty calm day, but as waves come around the point where the lighthouse was perched, they would swell up enough for kayakers to ride them to shore. Quite different from the sea kayaking we see up here in the San Juans!

Just a little further north on the coastline we found they Seymour Discovery Center at Long Marine Laboratory, part of the marine sciences program at UC Santa Cruz. In the gift shop just outside of the exhibit hall I was surprised but pleased to find a few copies of my book on sale! We didn't have time to tour the exhibits but just outside was an impressive blue whale skeleton, which dwarfed the gray whale skeleton that was nearby. The building in the background is part of a desalination test plant, where they are experimenting with turning sea water into fresh water.

One evening while bird-watching we pulled over at Moss Landing State Beach, and were surprised to find a raft of sea otters - we counted about two dozen of them! Apparently it is common for them to congregate like this in a resting group even though they are often solitary, and it was dusk so they were probably getting ready to settle down for the night. Some of them were still feeding, which attracted all the gulls to the area as well. What I couldn't explain was the behavior many of them were exhibiting by covering their noses with their paws. I haven't been able to find out why they do this - maybe just to keep their noses warm?

Monday and Tuesday I will be attending the Transboundary Workshop for Marine Naturalists at Port Townsend, WA, which will be an event with extensive coverage on everything related to the Southern Resident killer whales and current research. There should be some interesting things to report afterwards.

I will also be giving a shore presentation introducing the Salish Sea Association of Marine Naturalists (SSAMN - pronounced "salmon") - a new group I've been a part of forming with a few other commitemed individuals. Our main goals are to network naturalists across the region, legitimize the naturalist profession, share educational opportunities, and work to provide accurate information about the local ecosystem that will help drive both residents and visitors to increased stewardship. A group of us started meeting in fall 2007 to form this group, and we opened for membership last November, but this will be a bigger announcement to really explain to a larger audience what we're about. If you are a naturalist in the Salish Sea region, hopefully I will see you there, or let me know if you want more information!

Monterey Whale (and Bird) Watch

Today we made it to Monterey in good time, so I had a chance to check out the spectacular Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's the best aquarium I've been to, in part because they've chosen not to keep any marine mammals other than otters at their facility, instead featuring a huge array of other underwater critters. They also run the Seafood Watch Program which promotes sustainable fisheries, something you should definitely check out if you are a seafood eater. When I first went to this aquarium about 10 years ago, I spent 8 hours (the entire time they were open) there. Today, I didn't have that luxury, but I did have a chance to take in my favorite exhibit - the jellyfish:

Then it was off for our whale-watching trip out of Monterey Bay. The weather wasn't great - overcast, breezy, chilly - but as soon as we got on board we were greeted by two whale-watching dogs who looked more than ready to help us spot whatever we could out there:

Before we even pulled all the way out of the marina we were stopping to take in the Brandt's cormorants and California sea lions on the jetty:

Sea lions are full of characeter and, in my opinion, very expressive while they are hauled out:

But what was most captivating was the group (or mass of them, really) resting in the water with flippers held up in the air. At first we were befuddled by this behavior but after thinking about how orcas regulate body heat by losing extra warmth through their dorsal fin I figured it probably had something to do with temperature regulation. A quick internet search once we got home (which coincidentally led to an informative Monterey Bay Aquarium page) confirmed this theory - by keeping their flippers above water while resting they can absorb heat from the sun and avoid losing further body heat to the water while they are resting. Hmmm....where was our naturalist to explain this to us on the boat?

As it turns out, the sea conditions were pretty rough and spotting gray whales was difficult. We did get glimpses of 4 whales, but nothing like the views we've had whale-watching off Depoe Bay on the Oregon Coast. As I very well know, every trip is different and some days are just tough when it comes to sightings. While we were disappointed not to have better cetacean encounters, the bird sightings made up for it. Shearwaters and kittiwakes? Sign me up! Those are species I've only ever seen on a pelagic birding trip I took years ago from Newport, Oregon. The most exciting find of the day (pointed out by our more informative naturalist once he realized I was interested in birds) was a black-footed albatross, a life bird for the entire Wieland clan. Look at that huge, seven foot wingspan and those thin wings designed for soaring over great oceanic distances:

When it became apparant great whale sightings weren't going to happen the captain indulged us bird-watchers by checking out a few bait balls:

It's a little blurry, but I like this shot of a black-legged kittiwake with a California gull in the background:

We didn't see any other marine mammals until we got back near the marina, where we saw the symbol of Monterey Bay, the sea otter:

There were more great birds to be seen by the docks, like the common loon in the photo below. For many species, some birds were in winter plumage while others had already molted into summer plumage. This loon was still in winter plumage:

Here are species lists for the day, with 34 spectacular different birds represented. Not a huge number, but some great, great finds. Next up for tomorrow's post will be the 17-mile drive: cypress trees, sand dunes, and mansions.

Mammal List
Harbor seal
California sea lion
Gray whale
Sea otter
California (aka Beechey's) ground squirrel
Black-tailed deer

Bird List
Common loon
Horned grebe
Eared grebe
Black-footed albatross - life bird
Northern fulmar
Pink-footed shearwater
Sooty shearwater
Brown pelican
Brandt's cormorant
Pelagic cormorant
Great egret
Snowy egret
Turkey vulture
Mallard
Surf scoter
Red-breasted merganser
Red-tailed hawk
Black oystercatcher
California gull
Western gull
Black-legged kittiwake
Common murre
Pigeon guillemot
Rhinoceros auklet
Rock dove
Mourning dove
Hummingbird sp.
American crow
Black-capped chickadee
European starling
Townsend's warbler
Dark-eyed junco
Red-winged blackbird
Brewer's blackbird