Summary of June Southern Resident Visits

Yikes, I think more than two months without a blog post is a new record, and not in a good way! It has been a very busy summer so far, and thankfully part of that has been due to some visits from the Southern Residents over the last six weeks. In the interest of sharing some photos and recapping some sightings, I'll make this a bit of a summary blog.

June 11 - 16: J-Pod and the Greater L4s

On June 11th the Southern Residents returned to the Salish Sea for the first time in nine weeks. All of J-Pod returned with the group I've called the "Greater L4s", made up of the L4s, L26s, L47s, and L72s. (The L12s actually came in too, but left the next day, while the others stayed.) This was obviously cause for great celebration, including playing hooky a morning from work to go say hi to them all and truly kick off the summer whale-watching season.

L55 in Haro Strait June 11

It was a picture perfect, glassy calm morning to be out on the water, and we got some fantastic hydrophone recordings before there were any other boats out. You can hear a clip here.

J38 Cookie also seemed "excited" to be back, though as much as we were hoping he was helping to make babies, he was actually fooling around with a couple of other young males, J39 Mako and L109 Takoda.

Regardless of what they were up to, it was just great to see some exuberant, roly-poly whales.

One of the best parts of seeing the whales after a long absence is to see how much they have grown, such as L122 Magic who already looks so much bigger at 3 years old!

L91 Muncher and L122

I think everyone was holding their breath that after such a long absence, the Southern Residents might only make a brief 24 hour visit, but luckily they stayed around for the next five days. On June 15, they were doing a good old fashioned "westside shuffle", and I got to see them early in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night!

The morning included a special moment at Land Bank where it was just me and the whales, and I was treated to this spyhop from J36 Alki.

Spyhop from J36 Alki

In the afternoon, the J16s and J19s came up as far as Lime Kiln before turning around, but not before J16 slick took a turn in the bull kelp right off the lighthouse, and did four or five spyhops making sure we got a nice look at her from every angle!

J16 Slick flings some kelp in the air with her tail

"Which side is better....my right?....

....or my left?"

In the evening, after a big group of Js zipped north on a huge flood tide, they then turned and rocketed back south right off the shoreline of Lime Kiln, all in a big line.

A little behind them came the rest, in a slower and more playful fashion.

Breach from J37 Hy'shqa

Sadly, on the morning of the 16th, the whales were headed back west again, but two other things made their first visit of the summer even more bittersweet. One was that L92 Crewser was not with them, bringing the population down to just 75 whales. The other was that three year old female J50 Scarlet was looking emaciated. All calves, but especially female calves (due the male-bias sex ratio in calves in recent years and also the female's ability to produce more whales) are so, so critical to this endangered population. We are all crossing our fingers for this little whale, who has been a fighter from day one, with the scarring she showed right after birth potentially being from a difficult birthing process where other whales had to assist. As of today, July 15th, more than a month later, she is still with us, but is not yet looking better.

June 20 - 21: J-Pod and the Greater L4s

On June 20th, the same group of Js and Ls came back into inland waters, and they were in party mode as they passed Land Bank's Westside Preserve in one big group in the afternoon.

J27 Blackberry and his brother J39 Mako

Some of the L4s

They went all the way up to the Fraser, then when they came down the next day they split into two groups. J-Pod came down one of the "normal" ways, but the Ls came down San Juan Channel, and I saw them as they exited Cattle Pass. The few times I've seen Residents exit Cattle Pass, they always seem to go beserk, and this time was no exception as they were breaching and tail slapping all over the place as they moved out into the bigger, windier seas of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

It was a quicker visit this time, as on the 22nd the whales were westbound out the strait again. The same Js and Ls made another visit to inland waters June 27-29, but were not very cooperative for shore-based whale watchers this time as they passed the west side of San Juan Island in the middle of the night each time. That would wrap up their visits for June, and then there would be another nearly two week absence before the Southern Residents returned in mid-July. Js came back in on June 12th, bringing K-Pod with them for their first visit to the Salish Sea since March! But this will all be further recapped in my next post, which I promise won't take two months to share!

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!

July 22 - August 14: Playing Catch Up on Whale Sigthings!

Over the last couple weeks I've had a lot of distant and/or brief whale encounters, many of which didn't seem worthy of their own blog post during the height of summer when I'm busy with so many other things as well! But now I've gotten so behind on sharing whale sightings that I have plenty of photos to share all in one go.

On July 22nd, the two halves of J-Pod met up in rough seas right off Lime Kiln. Most of the whales were pretty far offshore, but we got a surprise pass by J41 Eclipse and her son J51 Nova.

On August 3rd, all of J-Pod along with the L4s, L47s, and L26s made their way up Haro Strait in the evening. I still say nothing beats sunset whales!

L47 Marina and L115 Mystic

L92 Crewser

It was cool to see one of the biggest and one of the smallest members of L-Pod traveling together:

L92 Crewser and little L122, who will be named this month

On August 5th, the same group came back down Haro Strait, spread all the way across. Only a few were close enough to see from Lime Kiln on another day with wild seas.

Those babies gotta get up extra high to breathe when the seas are choppy!

IDs were especially difficult because of the backlighting, and the fact that the whales were "all mixed up" from our human perspective. For instance, I saw J31 Tsuchi traveling with L83 Moonlight!

On August 8th, K-Pod returned after an unheard of nearly two month absence in the middle of summer!  I just missed seeing them on August 9th as they passed with J-Pod, but did catch this awesome breach by J16 Slick.

J16 Slick

The "just missed" streak continued in the evening as I only caught the tail end of another pass, but got to see J17 Princess Angeline and her calf J53, who will also be named this month.

J17 Princess Angeline and J53

On August 11th, trying to increase my odds, I got up extra early to head out to the west side in hope of whales. My gamble paid off as I spotted J34 Doublestuf in the early morning light, foraging off of Land Bank. Surprisingly, only he, his mom J22 Oreo, and brother J38 Cookie were there. The rest of Js and part of K-Pod went north during the night without them! While for that day it looked eerily similar to when we had the three L22s on their own on the west side for a time during the summer of 2013, the J22s reunited with the rest of their pod by the end of the day.

J34 Doublestuf

On August 12th I finally caught up with the K12s and K13s, whales I hadn't really gotten a good look at yet this year. (In reality, I just missed them again at Lime Kiln, so we jumped out on our boat - enough misses!) We followed the K12s up to Boundary Pass - the K13s were a bit ahead, so I still didn't get a look at them.

K12 Sequim and K43 Saturna

While on the water with the K12s and K13s, we got word from another boater that ALL the other Southern Residents were inbound from the Strait of Juan de Fuca! Could we possibly be in for our first superpod of the year? Anticipating a yes, we got up early again the next morning, on August 13th spent four hours at Lime Kiln before we heard the K12s and K13s were staying up north and everyone else who had just come in the night before after dark was westbound again. Still, those early summer mornings are pretty darn spectacular with or without whales.

Mt. Baker sunrise as seen from Friday Harbor

Black oystercatcher at Lime Kiln

Female belted kingfisher with fish off Lime Kiln

Parent feeding juvenile oystercatcher at limpet

That afternoon, we heard the T65As were heading down San Juan Channel, hugging the San Juan shoreline. We went out to the Friday Harbor Labs in hopes of seeing them. As they approached, they were indeed right off the rocks. Unfortunately right after I took this photo, they went on a long dive and next surfaced around the corner past us to the south!

It was such a hot summer Saturday, that hanging out by the water continued to sound pretty good. We watched the Ts as they progressed down the channel into Griffin Bay, and then caught them as the exited Cattle Pass.

The Western Prince with the T65As passing Goose Island in Cattle Pass

The next day, August 14th, the K12s and K13s did the westside shuffle. We got to Lime Kiln just as they were passing heading north, but could barely see them! I got my first look at K20 Spock on the viewfinder of my camera, where I could see her better than with my naked eye through the fog!

K20 Spock - seen better by my camera than by me

Luckily, the fog lifted before the whales came back south, and I got a proper good look at K20 as she came right near the kelp!

K20 Spock

The whales were fighting a strong flood tide to head south, but seemed to be enjoying the currents, doing lots of breaches and tail slaps as they rolled at the surface.

Today, after having just the K12s and K13s in inland waters for several days, some other Js and Ks made their way back east. Bizarrely, the K12s and K13s went north without waiting to meet up with them, and then this evening just four whales (including J2 Granny) went north without any others, who were still south and milling off False Bay. Every day continues to be different in terms of which whales are where and with whom, so who knows what tomorrow and the coming weeks will bring!