September 18-22: Whales Every Day!

This is why we love September - beautiful lighting, fewer tourists, dramatic weather, and ALL the Southern Residents hanging out! The last few days have not disappointed, with a lot of all of the above.

It started on September 18th when we caught some J and K Pod whales heading north past Lime Kiln. Some might consider this shot of J41 Eclipse a "miss" but I like these bizarre off-angle shots sometimes. She and J51 Nova were zipping north and hard to catch with the camera.

J41 Eclipse

Many of the whales were quite far offshore, but we got a nice pass from L87 Onyx and his newest traveling partner - J45 Se-Yi'-Chn. It's been an interesting new combo, but one I think is probably good for both whales! L87 had taken to traveling mostly by himself, and J45 has just lost his mom J14 Samish, so it's nice to see them buddying up.

L87 Onyx approaching

J45 Se-Yi'-Chn

The trailing group on this day was the K13s:

K13 Skagit and her daughter K20 Spock

On September 19th, we just watched distant whales off the south end of San Juan Island. They were too far away to take photos, but it was still cool to see a huge resting group, even from that distance! More whales had come in on this day, though, bringing the entire population of Southern Residents into inland waters. That meant things were perfectly aligned for a magical superpod morning on the 20th of September! The southern group of Js, Ks, and Ls must have gone north before first light, as not long after daybreak all the SRKWs were southbound in Haro Strait. We caught up with the slow moving trailing group on the west side, and spent two tranquil hours watching and recording them with our hydrophone.

There's nothing I don't love about this photo! Jason tuning in to our live hydrophone feed, with a whale surfacing offshore and a great blue heron flying by!

K21 Cappuccino kept going back and forth foraging just about the entire time we were there, as did that great blue heron. That gave me a couple chances at getting both in the same photo!

Speaking of K21, it had been a while since I had spent some time with him. It was nice to get a good look at him again as at one point he surfaced right off the kelp.

K21 Cappuccino

L92 Crewser came by several times, too:

L92 Crewser

While Cappuccino and Crewser spent the morning foraging, L85 Mystery seemed to have other things on his mind. He was in hot pursuit of J35 Tahlequah, and spent the rest of his time rolling around and playing with a mix of the J17s and L4s.

L85 Mystery in the middle socializing with whales outside of his family group

L85 Mystery with J35 Tahlequah and J47 Notch - I thought Notch was getting big until I saw him next to Mystery! ;)

All in all it was a very tranquil morning!

On September 21st, we again got to Lime Kiln in the middle of J and K Pods heading north. Again, they were mostly pretty far offshore, and again, they were going fast!

It was such a beautiful day out and with whales spread all over Haro Strait we decided to hop in the boat. The first whales we caught up with at Open Bay were some of the J17s.

J17 Princess Angeline and J53 Kiki

Following behind these two whales were the J28s - all of them! She's still looking thing, but our fighter J28 Polaris is still with us.

J28 Polaris - I breathe a sigh of relief every time I see her!

We saw a lot of blows to the south of us, so drifted back to see what was going on. We caught up with a group of about 15 whales including the K13s and a few other members of all three pods. They were swimming in a tight group, and kept changing directions, seemingly without vocalizing at all. They were so close to one another they may have all actually been in physical contact. It was amazing to watch as they swam in a circle....we could only guess at what they were doing!

First facing one way...

....then the other...

...then turning around again!

They seemed really undecided on whether to go north and south, going on long dives and surfacing first in one location facing one way and then somewhere totally different facing the other.

Which way should we go?

  Finally it seemed they decided to go north:

And finally we heard a few vocals from them, too! Check out a short clip here.

As the Js and Ks continued north, a couple whales held back...and it turns out it was the L22s! We jokingly say they always hang out at Eagle Point, because it's rare for them to ever come up north of Lime Kiln, but here they were!

L22 Spirit

Tail slap from L89 Solstice

Late in the day on September 22nd, the Js and Ks we saw go north on the 21st were making their way back down. First came the K12s and K13s in the late afternoon passing the west side in harsh sun glare.

By the time the others made it down a couple hours later, the sun was already low in the sky (at 6:30?! Days are definitely noticeably shorrter!). The wind and wave action had picked up, too, making for a really dramatic backdrop for a whale passby. On top of that, the whales were fairly close to shore and super active! The turbulent waters also seemed to be attracting lots of birds, which were flying around everywhere during the pass. It was a bit chaotic but fun to watch! I ended up with many shots like this one, with gulls flying across as I tried to photograph whales. Can you see the four distant whales in this photo?

The whole pass ended up feeling really magical; the big waves made all the whale surface activity extra splashy, and all the splashes were backlit by the setting sun!

It was hard to know where to point the camera, especially since the first whales were in a pretty large group! I definitely missed more shots than a got, but here are a few more moments I did manage to capture:

J17 Princess Angeline

J27 Blackberry

J35 Tahlequah

It was one of those very memorable passbys, and I try extra hard to soak up moments like these at the end of the season, when you just don't know how many more times you'll see these guys before the long winter months that lie ahead!

August 20th: A Whale of a Day With All Three Pods

On the evening of August 19th, after a day with no whales in the area, we heard about a large group of residents heading in from out west. With hopes of perhaps our first real superpod of the season, we headed out to the west side on the morning of August 20th with word of whales heading up towards Lime Kiln. The first marine mammal sighting of the day, however, wasn't an orca but this harbor seal pup in the kelp:

With the potential for all the whales to be in the area and no idea at all who's out there, it always takes a bit to figure out just who we're looking at. The whales being all mixed up makes it a little bit harder, too! The first whales we saw were some members of the K13s with some members of the L47s.

K25 Scoter and L47 Marina

If you were surprised like I was to not have J2 Granny in the lead group as usual, turns out that's just because she was so far in the lead she passed Lime Kiln before sun-up. I heard later that Granny's group of J-Pod was way up in Swanson Channel already with the L4s at this time.

The mixed group of Ks and Ls hung out for a long while in front of Lime Kiln, apparently actively foraging. They were spread out, but we saw lots of surface activity, including some impressive lunges as they presumably pursued a salmon.

Awesome surface lunge by K13 Skagit

Even though they weren't as close to shore as a couple days ago, the morning light was again awesome for seeing photographing all their surface behavior.

Tail slap by K25 Scoter

As a few more whales came north to join the group, they all converged and were zipping around in tight groups. They don't really cooperatively hunt for salmon as far as we know, but it sure looked like the feeding was good in that spot for everyone!

An odd combo: K20 Spock and baby L122

A couple of foraging whales zoomed past this boat (who had cut their engines - the whales approached them), wowing the people on the board. I particularly love the look of disbelief from the woman on the left as she experiences a moment she'll never forget! The girls on top look pretty thrilled, too.

K27 Deadhead and another whale thrill these onlookers

The photos didn't really capture the excitement of the foraging whales, but we had our hydrophone in the water, and the vocalizations sure did. Check out a clip of what we heard here. 

After a time this group of whales continued north, and next to pass us were K38 Comet and K34 Cali to complete the K13 family group.

K38 Comet heading north to catch up with the rest of his family

Next came some more L-Pod whales, including a couple I haven't seen much of at all this year, like L72 Racer and L105 Fluke!

L105 Fluke - who has grown so much since last year that I had to do a double take when I saw him!

After a few more Ls went by, we thought that was probably it, as no other whales were in sight to the south. Perhaps all the whales that were coming in the night before hadn't stayed? We headed home to have a late breakfast, and then heard from a friend that other whales were heading towards the south end of San Juan Island from offshore! We headed back out to the west side, but the only whales that made it north past Lime Kiln were the J16s - all the other Js, Ks, and Ls stayed near False Bay or further south.

J16 Slick and J50 Scarlet make a mid-afternoon pass by Lime Kiln

In the evening, the seas remained flat calm as they had all day, so after an early dinner we decided to head out on the boat to see if we could meet up with the whales off False Bay. Surprisingly, we ended up finding whales right near Open Bay! The J16s were on their way back south. But even more surprisingly, they weren't alone! I had seen all the members of the J16s when we spotted another male offshore. I took a photo to figure out who it was, and you should have heard my excitement when I realized it was L84 Nyssa, a member of the greater L54 sub-group of L-Pod who don't generally spend much time here at all.

You wouldn't think this average photo would cause so much excitement, but....L84 NYSSA!!!

After he passed we swung around to the outside of him to get a better shot of his other side lit up by the evening light.

L84 Nyssa about one and a half miles offshore of San Juan County Park

I figured it was unlikely he would be there without the others in his sub-group, and sure enough we found two more of them. (The other two were apparently well to the south with the other whales - it's a mystery how these guys made it up to the J16s seemingly undetected, though they were so far offshore maybe it's not surprising.) I love getting to spend time with these guys, the members of the Southern Resident Community that I know the least well.

L108 Coho with the Lime Kiln Lighthouse in the distance

We dropped the hydrophone a couple times, and while they were mostly just echolocating we did get a few vocals from L108. He stopped a couple times to actively forage, and we saw more surface lunges much like we saw from the other group first thing this morning.

I always love abstract whale shots with cool lighting/reflections, so check out this heavily cropped photo of L108 and the water in the amazing evening light:

The tip of the dorsal fin of L108 Coho as he submerges

We saw our first whales of the day around 8 AM and our last whales of the day around 8 PM! By the time it got dark out we were exhausted, but not complaining in the least! We wondered if we would be in for another whale-filled day today, August 21st, but what a difference a day makes. Yesterday there were whales on the west side all day and flat calm seas. Today, no whales nearby, and heavy winds with rough seas! A good time to stay at home and go through all the photos, data, and recordings we collected yesterday!