June 25th: All Day With J-Pod and the K14s

Late in the day on June 24th we heard about orcas off Sooke. The first reports were conflicting; initially it sounded like transients going west, but then it turned into residents coming east! It wasn't clear if it was Js, Ks, and/or Ls, but we are not picky, especially this year! We're in a time of year with huge tidal exchanges and there was a large ebb tide overnight, so I was worried they would ride the tide right back out again. But I still set my alarm for early Saturday morning and went out to look.

First stop showed perfect glassy calm conditions but no whales. We kept heading south along the shoreline until the hoped-for sight appeared: a black dorsal fin breaking the flat surface of the water. I saw about four whales who appeared to be milling off False Bay. Not convinced they would come north, we headed to the boat.

There's something so special about being out there early in the morning, either on land or on shore, and looking for and finding whales. Coming on scene on the boat was just as special as we spotted the first blows a couple miles ahead of us. We shut our engine off and dropped the hydrophone as we watched the whales slowly approached. Here's a sample of what we heard. And this is what we saw:

L87 Onyx and J38 Cookie

IDs at first were not easy. Not only were we on the wrong side of the light, but it was already surprisingly warm (T-shirts on the boat before 8 AM!) and the heat distortion made it even harder to see saddle patches. But we quickly recognized the fin silhouettes of L87 Onyx, J38 Cookie, and K26 Lobo among the first group of whales, so we knew we had at least J-Pod (who Onyx travels with) and the K14s. As we learned later in the day, these were in fact the 29 whales that came in.

K26 Lobo on the right

The whales were making slow progress north against the still-ebbing current and we spent a lot of time with them seemingly not moving off County Park. Suddenly, they picked up speed, and at the same time moved offshore, allowing us to switch to the other side and get better light for IDs and photos. This was one of my favorite moments of the day as there were whales everywhere in the blue waters under the Olympic Mountains, and we were the only boat on scene!

The moment was punctuated by a half breach from J26 Mike:

And a nice look at J39 Mako:

While the lead whales initially cruised past Henry Island, by the time we got up there some of the whales had stalled out at Kellett Bluffs. We were getting ready to head back to port, but decided to hang out and see what they would do. For a long time, we didn't see any whales at all, but then this tight group all surfaced together!

The indecision continued for a few more minutes as this close group of whales circled for a while before finally deciding to go back south, cruising quickly on the still ebbing tide. As they made up their mind we headed home - or tried to. This was one of the most extreme tides of the season, and not only was our slip out of reach, our entire dock was sitting in the mud! Thankfully we got permission to tie up somewhere else for a few hours and were close enough to walk back to our car.

Meanwhile, the whales just reached the south end of the island when they turned on the changing tide and made their way north again. We got to Lime Kiln just in time to see them for their third pass of the day.

J27 Blackberry and J31 Tsuchi

The J16s passed by in a tight group right off the rocks, close enough that we could see their dark bodies underwater as they cruised by.

J50 Scarlet, J42 Echo, and J16 Slick

One of my favorite things about photographing whales up close is capturing how the water flows over and off of their bodies. Check out how far up the water is riding on the front of J26 Mike's dorsal fin in this shot!

J26 Mike

With the flood tide increasing I guessed the whales were going to continue north, but we had no sooner moved our boat back to it's rightful place when we heard the whales had flipped again. This was now officially a good old fashioned Westside Shuffle! I got back to Lime Kiln just in time for perhaps the best pass of the day, as all the whales came by in one group after another just yards of the rocks.

The K14s approaching - there's that cool water again off the rostrum of the whale on the right!

Often it's hard to capture a whole group of whales in one shot if they don't surface in perfect synchrony, but the four K14s had excellent form as they came up under the Olympic Mountains just south of us:

The K14s under the Olympic Mountains

We got an even closer look at J27 Blackberry on this pass. Earlier he was traveling with his sister J31 Tsuchi, but now he was with his brother J39 Mako.

J27 Blackberry

Whales and mountains go so well together, so here's another one of J47 Notch:

J47 Notch

 
The J16s were the trailing group, and as they approached they meandered into the cove just north of the lighthouse, always a sure sign of good things to come.

Since they were born so close together, I've been dreaming of the perfect shot of J50 Scarlet and J52 Sonic surfacing together. As soon as I snapped the shutter I knew I had finally gotten it! I love this one so much.

From left to right: J36 Alki, J52 Sonic, J16 Slick, and J50 Scarlet

The J16s continuing on their way:

There were lots of smiles everywhere by the end of the day on Sunday, as it truly did feel like one of the good ol' days!

Thrilled after a great early morning boat encounter, not knowing many more hours of whale-watching still awaited us!

Ozette: Visiting the Outer Olympic Peninsula

Last week we went on a four day camping trip to Lake Ozette on the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula. This is one of those places I've long wanted to visit but hadn't ever been to until now. It's only about 180 miles from Friday Harbor, but with two ferry rides and lots of winding roads it took about seven hours to get there, which is part of the reason why it hadn't happened until now!

The town of Sekiu along the Strait of Juan de Fuca - namesake for one of our whales (K22)

The big draw for me to Ozette was the nine mile Ozette loop hike I've read about. While we didn't have the best weather for our trip (what do you expect for camping in a rainforest?), conditions did cooperate pretty well for our hike. It was overcast but not windy or rainy. The trail is an equilateral triangle with two sides being mostly boardwalks through the woods and one side being along the beach.

The boardwalk trail to Cape Alava

Foxglove

Bunchberry, or dwarf dogwood, against a backdrop of multicolored moss

About two miles out the boardwalk takes you through a clearing, the site of a historic homestead slowly being reclaimed by the forest:

"Ahlstroms Prairie"

Then, not too long after, our first glimpse of the rugged coastline. This part of Washington is the most uninhabited shoreline in the Lower 48, feeling more like Alaska than the rest of the United States. There's no road access here, or hardly anywhere along this part of the coast - this particular stretch goes over 20 miles with no driving access or development of any kind. Even the "trail" itself is really just the beach, which means the going is pretty slow! Stretches of gravel beach are interspersed with rocky shorelines that you just traverse any way you can.

It's a refreshing sight to take in: a beach in a fairly pristine state. Seaweed covered rocks, thriving tidepools, offshore roosts for pelagic birds, foraging bald eagles, and crashing waves. Nothing else. In fact, during our hike we saw just as many eagles (11) as other people.

We came across a gray whale skull not too far down the beach.

Keith pays his respects

Another highlight was locating some petroglyphs from the Makah tribe that predate European arrival to the Pacific Northwest. Pretty cool to see some killer whales etched into the rocks:

The true highlight, though, was the geology: all the sea stacks make for a very impressive landscape.

In some places, the headlands are only passable at low tides. There are overland trails you can take if you arrive at high tide, but I was glad we snuck through before the water got too high. This overland "trail" looked more like a rock climbing wall - notice the rope and near-vertical incline to the left of the sign. I would have been a bit scared to tackle that!

Of course, no where is truly pristine anymore, least of all the ocean. There was a fair amount of large garbage/debris that washed up, including lots of buoys, canisters, and derelict fishing gear. Several items appeared to be of Asian origin:

When we got to Sand Point, where the trail heads back inland, I was looking at some seals through binoculars and I was surprised to see a sea otter pop up! I really shouldn't have been surprised - when people identify our Salish Sea river otters as sea otters I often tell them how since the hunting era when sea otters were locally extirpated, they haven't returned to Washington's inland waters but are thriving on the outer coast where they have been reintroduced. Still, I wasn't expecting to see one! We actually ended up seeing about ten or so. I wasn't carrying my telephoto lens so unfortunately this is the only picture you get to see of one:

The hike was well worth the trip, but of course I was keeping my eyes open for wildlife all the time. In addition to the Swainson's thrush (170), warbling vireo (171), black-headed grosbeak (172), and cedar waxwing (173) that I added to the year list in recent weeks, on this trip I added purple martin (174 - in Friday Harbor while waiting for the ferry!), common nighthawk (175), and red crossbill (176). The most entertaining birds were the ones that visited camp, however - the normally skittish Steller's jays were quite the camp robbers:

Notice the blue "eye spots" indicative of the coastal morph of the Steller's jay - inland birds have white eye spots.

One of my all-time favorite birds, the Steller's jays are a Pacific Northwest icon conspicuously absent from San Juan Island. They don't like to fly over water - but have made it over the shorter waterways to nearby Orcas and Shaw Islands. As I mentioned, on this trip these guys were always hanging around looking to swoop in for food scraps. When we were packing up, with doors and the trunk open, I was surprised to see one fly out of my car!

There were also lots of fledglings being fed, particularly robins, chestnut-backed chickadees, and golden-crowned kinglets. Here's a young kinglet begging for food from its parent - it was amazing to see how many insects the kinglets could round up in a very short period of time! I guess you have to keep pretty busy to keep a hungry baby satiated.

Finally, no camping trip is complete without a couple of campfires - that's one of the best parts!

And a few roasted marshmallows, too....oops, burned this one!

Elwha River and Hurricane Ridge

This last weekend we went over for some camping in Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula. The weather report was a wet one, and indeed in rained for the entirety of the drive and two ferry trips it took to get to the Elwha River valley where we decided to camp. Luckily, once we arrived, the rain ceased giving us a chance to set up camp and take a walk around looking at the flora and fauna before cooking dinner.

Olympic National Park contains three distinct habitat zones: the rocky coastline, the Olympic mountain range, and the lush temperate rainforest. The latter is where we were - and the amount of green everywhere is sure impressive. Trees, ferns, mosses, and lichens abound.

There were lots of snails and banana slugs about:

There was also a pair of deer out browsing, perhaps also enjoying the break in the rain:

We also saw some of the regular avian visitors to the campground: American robins, dark-eyed juncos, song sparrows, Vaux's swifts, and, most excitingly, evening grosbeaks and red crossbills.

The drizzle resumed during our post-dinner campfire, and after entering the tent the night-long torrential downpour began. This gave us the opportunity to find all the less-than-waterproof portions of our tent, and the optimistic camper in me insisted it was only appropriate to be experiencing heavy rains while in the rainforest. 

Our camp site was right along the Elwha River, which is making headlines right now for its historic dam removal project aimed at revitalizing the salmon population. There were two dams on the lower Elwha River, and one of them failed to have any fish passages, which was illegal even when the dam was built in the early 20th century. The result was the 70 miles of relatively pristine river habitat protected within the National Park have been cut off to native salmon populations for the better part of 100 years. In 1992, a bill was passed saying the salmon runs had to be recovered, even if it meant taking the dams down. Years of study indicated that dam removal would be the best option for salmon recovery, and in September of 2011 the dam removal began.

This is the largest dam removal project to date in the United States and the second largest restoration effort undertaken by the National Park Service in its history (after the Everglades). It's a monumental event, and one that I hope will start a trend of dam removals in the Pacific Northwest - places like the Lower Snake River and Klamath River are ideal sites to remove dams where salmon runs would also benefit. It was inspiring to visit the Elwha amid all of this going on. One of the park rangers said, "The river is changing every day," and already there are signs that it is only becoming healthier. 

The 108-foot Elwha Dam was fully removed by March, and the lake behind it was fully drained in April. Here's what the whole structure looked like:

And here's what it looked like on Sunday, June 24th, 2012:

 On the surface it looks like a mud pit, but a recent post on the Dam Removal Blog explains how life is already encroaching on the barren sediment that covers the remains of an old forest. Sandpiper and otter tracks crisscross the mud, and seedlings of native trees are taking root on the stumps of 500 year-old cedars that have been buried under the reservoir for the last century. Very cool stuff.

Back to our trip....The weather broke again first thing on Saturday morning, just long enough to cook a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and potatoes. Then, the clouds moved in and the rain continued as we decided to make our way up Hurricane Ridge. At 5200+ feet elevation, it is known for its stunning views of the interior mountains the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Those vistas were not to be enjoyed on this day! Here's what we were supposed to be looking at:

But this is what we saw:

The 17-mile drive up to the ridge was even treacherous, with the fog severely limiting visibility:

But the weather conditions didn't stop us from seeing some really cool wildlife! First stop was to look at this very tiny fawn, which must have just been born as it was still wobbly on its legs:

We also saw a couple of sooty grouse, a species I only heard while in Winthrop the weekend before:

Somehow, the wilderness seemed even larger, looming there in the unknown:

Up at the summit, feet of snow still blocked off many of the trails, and sub-alpine wildflowers were just beginning to bloom where the snow was beginning to fade away during this colder-than-average spring in the Olympics. A horned lark (208) and an American pipit foraged right along the snow line - species that prefer open habitats but which I've never seen at these elevations before.

Drenched by the time we left the summit, we decided we might as well keep exploring and stopped by Madison Falls:

There were lots of maidenhair ferns - my favorite fern species - in this part of the park along the creeks and waterfalls:

We also walked about three-quarters of a mile up the Griff Creek trail, which was narrow and wound its way up through the woods. Here's what part of the trail looked like:

Upon our return to camp, we discovered our tarp had fallen under the weight of all the rainwater, drenching our chairs and firewood. With damp clothes and a damp tent, this was the low point of the trip, but it quickly turned around when 15 minutes later the sun peaked out for the first time, and the rain stayed at bay for the rest of the evening and another enjoyable (if hard to get going) campfire.

Sunday morning it was time to pack up and start heading home, but with the weather clearer it was too tempting not to make another jaunt up Hurricane Ridge to see if we could see the views this time. It was well worth it:

 This time the vistas matched the signs:

We didn't see as many birds this time, perhaps because there were a lot more people around, but we did see this deer and these ravens that nicely posed in front of the mountainscape together:

Back home, it was a challenge to get everything clean and dry, but over a late dinner one more cool weekend wildlife moment awaited. It was almost dark, when I heard and then saw a very distressed violet-green swallow. A pair nests nearby, but they're usually roosting by this time of night, and I went outside to see what it was upset about. It was circling right around the houseboat, so I walked up the dock to see if something was on the roof. I thought it might be a Cooper's hawk, which we've seen around here a few times before, but I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a barred owl perched right on our gutter! Before I could return with my camera to try and get a dim-light photo it had disappeared back into the trees on the bank. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't see it among the narrow strip of woods here between the marina and the road. It got me thinking about how many natural wonders lay hidden within the Olympic National Park forests - 95% of which are designated as wilderness. It didn't matter if I didn't see the mountain lions, black bears, and spotted skunks that make their home in the Elwha River Valley. Just being in the same forest with them was enough.