September 20 ~ Whale Watch with J34

On Saturday, September 20th, with some friends and family in town, we decided to head out on a morning whale watch trip with Western Prince. With all three pods hanging out on the banks the previous evening, I was worried they might all head out west and leave, but was thrilled instead to hear the news that whales were spread from Eagle Point to Hannah Heights as we left the harbor.

It was a beautiful day to be on the water, and fun to see some of my favorite spots from the water after spending so much more time on shore these days. Here's Cattle Point with harbor seals and cormorants on Goose Island in the foreground and the Olympic Mountains in the background:

As we pulled out into Haro Strait, the whales were suuuuuper spread out - one here, one there - and seemingly all foraging. With about three whales in front of and in shore of us, we stopped the boat to just watch and see what they would do. After a long dive, all of a sudden J34 Doublestuf popped up off our bow cruising towards the island.

J34 Doublestuf

J34 Doublestuf with San Juan Island in the background

He cruised in towards shore, and we floated along watching a couple other whales, presumably the rest of his family, the J22s. After a while, I was starting to wonder where he had gotten to, because it had been several minutes since he had been up. That's when I noticed a fluke print (a calm looking area on the surface of the water created by the kick of the flukes creating an upwelling) about 50 yards off our bow. A second later, a huge black and white shape came into view heading straight for us!

I have to preface this with a major disclaimer that moments like this do not happen often. I've been watching whales up here for over a decade, and I can count on one hand the number of moments I've had like this from a boat. Whale watch captains do their best to follow the distance regulations to give the whales their space, but the fact of the matter is the whales don't know or follow any such rules, and when they choose to break them, we get to enjoy a rare close encounter.

Doublestuf proceeded to swim all along the starboard side of the boat, just beneath the surface, turned on his side so his dorsal fin didn't even break through the surface. I was shooting the camera without looking through the viewfinder, taking in this rare encounter firsthand, and I could tell he was actively turning his head - look at us, or perhaps looking for a salmon trying to take refuge under the boat? It was all over so fast, but moments like this are pure magic, and I'm grateful I captured as much of it as I did on film. I should probably mention these shots were taken with my lens zoomed all the way out - to 18mm!!

J34 Doublestuf: RIGHT. THERE.

You can tell here he's turning his head to look under the boat

Another perspective, showing just how close to the boat he was!

As he got further away again, we all suddenly had a much better appreciation for just how big he is - sometimes it's hard to tell without something to scale them by!

J34 continues to forage

After a while it was time to leave the orcas, but our wildlife watching was far from done! Just a bit south of the whales we saw a nice group of Dall's porpoise. As has been the case in recent years, these guys have been scarce during the summer months, only to return in full force in September. I wonder where they go?

Dall's porpoise!!

Then we went by Whale Rocks, where the Steller sea lion action is always fantastic this time of year. I just don't get tired of watching these guys!

Stellers and the Cattle Point Lighthouse

Thinking about entering the water.... (he did)

Steller and Mt. Baker!

It's always a multi-sensory experience watching Stellers. You see them, smell them, and hear them as they dispute whose rock is whose.

 

Sea lions make easy work navigating the complicated currents of Cattle Pass, though this guy came up coughing. Wouldn't want to meet those teeth much closer, that's for sure!

Needless to say, we had a fantastic trip, and it was phenomenal introduction the local wildlife for our guests!

The T65As in Georgia Strait

Yesterday was my first time getting out on the water for the 2014 season, as I hopped aboard with my former employer Western Prince Whale and Wildlife Tours out of Friday Harbor. We left the dock without any whale reports, but I had a good vibe about the day, and it wasn't too far up San Juan Channel before we came across a group of obliging harbor porpoise that gave us all some good looks.

Shortly after this, we go the word we had all been hoping for, that the group of transient orcas seen the day before had been relocated. They were way north in the Canadian Gulf Islands, just at the edge of our range - in fact, after going through Active Pass, we turned north a bit further, taking me further than I had ever been on the Western Prince when I worked there! It was well worth the journey, as soon became apparent when we got on scene with the five whales.

The family group was the T65As, made up of mama T65A and her four surviving offspring, including little T65A5 that was first seen in March of this year.

T65A5, only a couple months old, pokes its head up

The whales had apparently made a kill a while before we got there, so these mammal-eating whales were out of stealth mode and into party mode. The whole group of them, particularly the juveniles, seemed to be in a frisky, playful mood.

Three year-old T65A4 lunges

We heard one of the whales vocalize at the surface, which encouraged the captain to drop the hydrophone into the water. We heard a few more eerie vocals over the boat's speakers.

From left to right: T65A2, T65A4, T65A5

The setting was beautiful, too, in the south Strait of Georgia - the whales even passed in front of our distant view of Mt. Baker:

Calf T65A5 with Mt. Baker in the background

It was pretty special getting to spend some time with this family! We started heading back to our home port and took a different route back, by East Point. Here we stopped to enjoy the abundant wildlife that seems to always hang out here in the spring of recent years, including hundreds of Bonaparte's gulls in their black-headed summer plumage. I love these gulls! They're smaller than our regular gulls and look so buoyant in flight.

One black oystercatcher in with this flock of Bonaparte's gulls - do you see him?

 We also got some quick looks at about twenty long-tailed ducks:

And on the nearby haulouts were lots of Steller sea lions and harbor seals:

Steller sea lions at East Point off Saturna Island, BC

We saw such a variety of wildlife, it was all I could have hoped for during my first afternoon getting out on the water this season!

September 6: Superpod

I love September. I always say it's my favorite month in the San Juan Islands and the first week has more than reminded me why. I've had so many amazing wildlife encounters already and have been so busy looking for whales and enjoying our late summer weather that I've gotten behind on things to blog about! I've gotta start with the most spectacular, which occurred last Friday when I went out with Western Prince. All three Southern Resident pods returned on September 3rd, and given how scarce they've been this summer and the fact that the season is winding down, I was eager to see them.

We headed north up to Boundary Pass. It was a foggy morning and we passed through some patches of fog on our way up there, but when we neared the whales things cleared up beautifully.

Just like they have been, the pink salmon were jumping like crazy. In this picture you can see why they're nicknamed "humpies" or humpback salmon:

We met up with the whales in the middle of the Pass, and the 80+ of them were so spread out that you could see dorsal fins in any direction you looked. The first whale we came across was L72 Racer, who passed between us and the Odyssey (notice the two other whales in the background):

With the low, wispy clouds covering part of the islands in the background, it was an amazing time and place to be watching whales:

Racer was traveling with K22 Sekiu, and their two nine year-old boys L105 Fluke and K37 Rainshadow were really enjoying playing around together.

From left to right: K22 Sekiu, L72 Racer, K37 Rainshadow

As they traveled on ahead, we turned to view off the north side of the boat where a large group of whales was moving up the shoreline of Saturna Island. It would be pretty special to have a home on the south side of Saturna, where the whales often pass by!

I just missed the breach from a calf, but I caught the amazed expressions on the faces of these two women who were sitting on the Saturna shoreline (click to see a larger view):

Here's another shot that shows what they were treated to - this is L53 Lulu passing by in front of them:

The whales closest to us were  a group of playful youngsters; we had a trio of them on each side of the boat. It's amazingly hard to ID the juveniles when there aren't any adults around to give a clue as to who might be there! The whales grow so fast that their dorsal fin shape may not look like their ID photo, and with all their playing they're getting new nicks and scratches all the time. On one side of the boat we had J46 Star and J44 Moby with one other whale, and on the other side of the boat was L109 Takoda, K44 Ripple, and one other whale.

They were having a grand old time, and so were we, watching them!

Here's a couple shots of J44 Moby:

And L105 Takoda off the other side (I was standing on the bow of the boat so I could easily switch from viewing off one side to the other):

As we rounded East Point with the whales, they turned to the north to head for the Fraser River. There seemed to be a little rearranging of the different groups, and we found ourselves with J27 Blackberry for a bit. I love getting photos of orcas with different bird species - I have shots of whales with common murres, rhino auklets, and black oystercatchers, for instance - but this was the first time I photographed a whale with red-necked phalaropes!

J27 Blackberry with a trio of red-necked phalaropes

As often happens during superpods, a group of adult males was hanging out together. Near Blackberry were K21 Cappuccino and L95 Nigel.

K21 Cappuccino

The whales seemed excited or eager to head towards the Fraser, because all of a sudden whole groups of them started swimming at high speed, or porpoising. Even though we were farther away at this point, it was an impressive sight to see groups of whales launching themselves out of the water like that. The L4s were traveling with the J17s.

From left to right: J17 Princess Angeline, J28 Polaris, J46 Star

L27 Ophelia

We were with the whales for a memorable hour and a half, but the time passed so fast that it was hard to believe it was time to leave already. We left them continuing north up the Strait of Georgia.

From left to right: L27 Ophelia, L53 Lulu, L86 Surprise

As beautiful as it was when we arrived in Boundary Pass, the skies may have been even more stunning on the way home!

I can only hope that the rest of September has more of this kinda day in store!

Transients Near Trial

After a crispness in the air earlier this week that definitely felt like fall, we were back to summer-like weather today. With a half day at work, I decided to go out on the Western Prince this afternoon. The resident whales, who made a quick appearance in inland waters yesterday, were already on their way back out the Strait this morning (not a good sign for local fish numbers). We left the dock without a whale report, but as is always the case, you never know what you're going to see until you see it!

In San Juan Channel we came across a nice bait ball of fish that were actually visible under the water. Glaucous-winged, California, and Heermann's gulls were in the vicinity, as were three harbor seals. Seals tend to be skittish on land, but in the water they can be quite curious, as these three were today.

We headed out through Cattle Pass into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where there were lots of seabirds hanging out in the glassy calm waters, including lots of rhinoceros auklets and common murres. Here's one murre out a little further in the Strait, where the waters weren't quite that flat but still pleasant to be boating on:

The view back towards Mt. Baker from out there was a stunning one: 

We also saw both harbor porpoise and Dall's porpoise out there, and were just starting to look for minke whales when we got a report of transients over near Victoria, BC. Off we went! We cruised out west, passing Trial Island and the Trial Island Lighthouse along the way:

 We caught up with the T10s right off the coastline. This family group is made up of three whales. The mom, T10 Langara, was estimated to be born before 1963. Her two living sons are T10B Siwash (age 29) and T10C Bones (age 13). Not all transient orcas have names like residents do, but some of the commonly seen groups have been named by the Vancouver Aquarium for their wild killer whale adoption program. When we got on scene, the whales were really close to shore, wowing viewers who had pulled over to watch. It's almost hard to see the dorsal fins against the rocks:

Although these whales are regularly (for transients) seen in the area, this is the first time I've met this group of whales. It's always cool to see new whales and get to know their distinguishing features. It was an impressive sight to see the two brothers surfacing together. T10B is a good looking adult male with a huge dorsal fin.

Mama T10 has a huge notch in the back of dorsal fin near the base, making her unmistakable here on the left:

It's kind of odd to watch wild killer whales in such an urban setting, with so many houses in the background!

In typical transient fashion, the whales would go together on longer dives all together, and being more difficult to track, it wasn't always clear right where they were going to come up. A couple of times they surprised us by picking up speed and surfacing way up ahead. They also ducked in behind Trial Island, popping up in a bay right along off the rocks:

A couple of times we saw a bit of splashing at the surface and some non-directional swimming, so maybe they were after something. If they were, they didn't make any theatric kills as transients will sometime do. There were some harbor seals nearby in the water, and transients can be pretty efficient predators when they want to be.

We were about 25 miles from Friday Harbor at this point and had a long trek home, so all too soon it was time to leave. As we pulled away we could see the blows of the T10s lit up against Trial Island, and we got another nice view of the lighthouse with the Olympic Mountains behind it:

All in all, it was another beautiful day in the Salish Sea!