July 2nd: Western Explorer Trip With Friends!

My Orca Behavior Institute partner Michael and I both had lots of friends and family coming into town for the 4th of July holiday weekend, so I booked a whale watch charter on the Western Explorer, the zodiac I used to work on. Since some visitors didn't make it in time for the trip, I invited some other whale friends along, and we ended up going out with an awesome group of people!

All geared up for the Western Explorer

It also turned out to be the perfect opportunity to get a photo of "Team OBI". While we've gotten some generous financial support at the Orca Behavior Institute, we've also had several friends volunteer their time and skills to help us out. You can read a bit more about some of our team members on the newest page on our website. 

Team OBI - Back row from left to right: Brittany, Keith, Cindy, Sara, and Julie. Front row: Yours truly and OBI co-founder Michael.

While we all enjoy educating the public about the whales and other local wildlife, we also enjoy the chance to "fake naturalize" among ourselves, when we get to make up all the fake answers we're sometimes tempted to give to tourist questions. For now I'll leave those questions and answers to your imagination ;)

On our way out to the whales we went by the smoldering Goose Island, a Nature Conservancy Preserve that was accidentally set on fire by illegal fireworks. After two attempts to put it out, the local fire fighters decided to let it burn itself out, as the fire had gotten into the ground and with the dry conditions and local winds was proving almost impossible to fully extinguish. (It was also a forewarning of what was to come: on July 5th we woke up to bizarre hazy brown skies caused by an abundance of local wildfires that rendered the outside world a living sepia photograph.) Amazingly, while many nests were destroyed, several gull chicks survived and other nests were still occupied. Same with the black oystercatchers and pelagic cormorants, showing their resilience in a still-burning landscape. While the double-crested cormorant nests didn't burn, they did appear to abandon all breeding efforts for this season.

Smoldering Goose Island

Out in the straits, we stopped to check out a pair of minke whales before heading towards the orcas. I don't get to see these guys as much as I used to, so it was fun to get a close look at them again. I sent my sightings to the Northeast Pacific Minke Whale Project - you can do the same with any of your minke whale sightings! They don't get out on the water as much as they would like, so citizen science reports really help their studies. They think the whale in the first photo is a young animal, perhaps even a young of the year.

Up near False Bay, just as the evening lighting was getting golden, we came across the orcas.

The first group of whales we saw was the J2s.

J37 Hy'shqa

J2 Granny

Next up were the J2s' favorite travel companions of the summer: the K14s.

K26 Lobo

One thing that's great about having the camera out to photograph whales is the other photo ops you get along the way - like this common murre.

The whales foraged close to shore for a while as we watched them from offshore.

K26 Lobo and Mt. Baker

Before it was time to leave, the whales pulled offshore and started milling around closer to us.

Another shot of a common murre - this one being startled by an orca

There's absolutely nothing better than sunset whales:

All in all it was a great evening out with friends, and a beautiful ride back to the harbor.

Washington State Ferry heading into Friday Harbor

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!

August 26th: Ts Everywhere!

On Tuesday, August 26th I got to go out on the zodiac the Western Explorer with a friend who was about to leave after spending the summer interning here. With some residents having gone out west the day before and others way up north out of range, first thing in the morning the whale report was looking a little questionable. I had a good feeling about the day, however, and it turned out my gut reaction was right. There were transients ("Ts") all over the place!

When we left the dock in mid-afternoon, one group of Ts was right outside Friday Harbor! It was the T65As, a group that has been around a lot this summer.

The T65As right outside Friday Harbor

With quite a few boats on scene and reports of another, larger group of transients not too far away, we just took one quick look at the T65As then headed east through the San Juan Islands towards Rosario Strait. As we got close, the whales fanned out into no fewer than four different groups as they rounded the eastern tip of Orcas Island. I've been watching whales here for over ten years, but this was something I had never seen before - we were with one group of transients, and just about everywhere you looked you could see another group! It was more like watching a spread out group of resident matrilines.

Turns out the whales were not in nice, orderly groups however. The different transient family groups present were all mixed up, and with no adult males present (just about 20 transient females and juveniles!) it proved difficult to get IDs, both while we were there and later from my photos. The best as I could piece it together, present were the T34s, T36s, and T37s, but I don't think that's enough whales to account for everyone there, so I think there was at least one more family mixed in there too!

A mixed group of transient killer whales in Rosario Strait

Things lined up perfectly for this shot:

Transient killer whales (I believe the T37As) in front of Mt. Baker

I love being on the water late afternoon/early evening - the lighting is so great. And I got to do it twice in three days!

Groups were just meandering this way and that - they didn't seem to have any destination in mind, but they didn't really seem to be hunting either, at least not as far as we could tell. Right before it was time to leave, three of the groups met up and gave us one last beautiful surfacing.

Probably my favorite photo of the afternoon

This one was taken a split second later

T37A on the right

It's always interesting to think about residents and transients interact, or at least how they share the habitat. There are definitely days we have both ecotypes in the area, but it also seems like at times its either one type or the other that's prolific throughout the Salish Sea. This was definitely a transient day! There were even more groups than the five that we saw, with no residents around at all. I estimated there were probably about 30 transients around! Other days we have three or four groups of residents and no one finds any Ts! I really do wonder what they think of each other.

It's hard to believe we're already approaching September. I'm definitely not ready for the days to be getting shorter, but traditionally September is one of my favorite months of the year here, including having some of the best whale sightings! I can't wait to see what this September will bring.