Another Spectacular Sunday: Eagles, J-Pod, and the L12s

Sundays have proven to be great days for seeing whales so far this season! Yesterday the L12 sub-group of L-Pod magically showed up with J-Pod, and word first thing this morning was that all 40 or so whales were heading south in Haro Strait. After breakfast we headed out to Land Bank's Westside Preserve, and we weren't there long before we heard that the whales were swimming back north in our direction. They were moving slowly against the ebb tide, still out of view, but after finding a place to sit and wait I didn't even get a chance to pull out my book when a bald eagle caught my eye. There must have been a carcass of some sort a little ways down the shoreline, because there were no fewer than five eagles flying around, plus a pair of turkey vultures and a couple of ravens. Not the greatest picture, but here's one bird of all three species in the same shot (raven is in the bottom left):

This adult bald eagle looked up at an immature eagle as it came in for a landing:

I didn't see the animals actively feeding, so I'm not sure what caught their attention. They would sit in the same area for a while and then take off and fly around before circling back. The only bird I saw with food in its beak was a raven - maybe the meal was inaccessible to the larger birds of prey? With all the flying around, we got three incredibly close flybys from three different eagles. It's not often you get so close to a wild bald eagle - pretty freakin' cool!

By the time the bird activity started to settle down, the first blows were coming into view past the point to the south. A large group of J-Pod whales was in the lead, and they weren't in any hurry. There was a lot of milling going on, with whales looping back and going inshore and offshore as they eventually made their way north. The J16s and J22s were in this group, and by the number of whales I'm guessing the J14s were there as well, though probably a bit further offshore where I couldn't ID them.  J8's group was also there, and J19 Shachi gave us the closest pass when she looped back south:

There was a bit of a gap then as this group of whales continued north, but I knew there were still more to come. A lot of the crowd that had gathered to watch the whales dispersed, despite being told there were more whales on the way. Often the best moments of a whale passby happen towards the end, after a lot of people have left - don't ask me why, but it's very often the case! Today was no exception.

I was thrilled to see the L12s come next - my first sighting of this group this year. L25 Ocean Sun thrilled us with a close pass:

Next was a trio of males, and they seemed interested in dawdling, too, and playing in the kelp. Here's L89 Solstice with kelp on his dorsal fin:

L41 Mega, the oldest living male and largest whale in the entire Southern Resident population, was also present. He's also so impressive to see at any distance, but up close especially.

L41 Mega begins to surface with a piece of kelp wrapped around his six-foot-tall dorsal fin

After the males meandered north, a group of eight whales quickly approached, surfacing all together in a line. I quickly realized it was the three adult females of the J17 matriline with their young offspring, but who were the other two whales? My photos revealed it was L94 Calypso and L113 Cousteau. I love it when whales from different family groups are mixed together, because I think it gives a glimpse into the social lives of these intriguing animals. The young whales in the J17 group are four year-old J44 Moby, four year-old J46 Star, and three year-old J47 Notch. L113 Cousteau was born in the same time span and is four years old as well. She was probably getting a chance to hang out with some members of her own age group, which she doesn't have any of in her sub-pod, or maybe mom was getting a chance to compare notes with other young mothers. It's fun to speculate!

From left to right: J44 Moby, J17 Princess Angeline, J28 Polaris. I believe the whale about to surface is J35 Talequah.

The six whales of the J17 matriline travel with L94 Calypso (larger fin at back, center) and L113 Cousteau (furthest back, just to the left of Calypso)

Two more males brought up the rear of the pack, also swimming quickly unlike all the earlier whales. One of them was J27 Blackberry, who like the other males before him had a piece of kelp around his dorsal fin despite swimming at near-porpoising speeds:

It's awesome to have the whales hanging around for days at a time - hopefully that means they're finding lots to eat here! Their pattern the last few days has been to head north to the Fraser River, then come down Boundary Pass and the west side of San Juan Island, turn around a little bit later, and head back north again. Not much hanging around on the west side as they sometimes do right after coming south, but when they are there, it's been pretty spectacular!

The Trek to 157

With only a short time to go before leaving the island for the holidays (and thus the rest of the calendar year), I renewed my efforts to find a few target species I thought I could add to the county list in my quest to reach 157 species and best the existing record for species seen in a year. (I bet people have probably seen more species in a year, but 156 is the number on record with Washington Birder, so that's the number I'm trying to best.)

Thayer's gull is one species I knew I should be able to get. It's a hard one to find, not because it's not here, but because it looks so similar to several other gull species. It most often gets compared to the herring gull, but I think it looks almost exactly like our western x glaucous-winged gull hybrids that are fairly common regionally. I studied up all the details of identification and went out with the specific purpose of studying gulls. 

I found this gull in Griffin Bay and have concluded its a Thayer's gull due to the three features indicated with the arrows. The blue arrow shows the dark (almost black) primaries - darker than those of a glaucous-winged or hybrid gull, but not jet black as in other gulls. The red arrow points to the shape of the forehead - on this gull it is more rounded, whereas in western and glaucous-winged gulls the forehead is flatter. Finally, the green arrow is pointing to the bill. On Thayer's gulls, the base of the bill is a pale yellow while the tip is bright yellow, as on this gull (it's more apparent on a zoomed in version of the photo). In glaucous-winged and western gulls, the bill is almost a school bus yellow throughout. So - Thayer's gull (153 for San Juan County, year bird 202)!

I got an e-mail from an ace birder, Ryan, inquiring about the details of the San Juan snowy owl sighting from a couple weekends ago. He came up to the San Juans last weekend, and in a couple of days turned up more than 100 species including 7 or 8 that would be county birds for me. (He also heard a long-eared owl, very rare for here, and a species that would be a life bird for me! More on that later.) In the process, he also pushed his own county list for the year to 161 - better than the existing record of 156! Uh oh! Realized 162 was probably out of reach for me, I decided to take advantage of some of the great sightings Ryan reported and still push towards my original goal of 157.....

One day after work, I headed out to look for the ruddy duck he saw on Sportsman Lake. Most of the ducks were on the far side of the lake, and as is often the case when I go out looking for a specific species, I didn't find it. I did, however, finally find my northern shoveler (154) - not just one, but a flock of 15 right up close! While continuing my circuit of the lakes and ponds in the center of the island, I also found a singled cackling goose (155) in with a flock of Canada geese.

Yesterday my birding pal Phil came over to San Juan and we had a couple of hours to tour around the island and see what we could turn up. Our first stop of the day was again at Sportsman Lake, and this time the ruddy duck (156) was close enough to be identified! Some other highlights from the rest of our afternoon included an American kestrel along Bailer Hill Road, a northern shrike at Cattle Point, and six ancient murrelets in Cattle Pass. By the end of the day, we totaled nearly 50 species in the 2.5 hours birding.

This morning I decided to try for the long-eared owl that Ryan heard at American Camp in the early hours of last Sunday. This is a rare species for the region, and as far as I know, there haven't been any prior confirmed reports of healthy birds on San Juan Island. I say healthy birds because twice, once in 1987 and once in 2010, long-eared owls were found on the island but were sick or injured and had to be taken to the local wildlife rehab center. It's not often I set my alarm earlier for a Saturday than I do for a work day, but this seemed like a worthy cause.

It was still completely dark when I arrived and it was a little bit eerie walking out through the forest towards the prairie. I spend about half an hour walking up and down between the two habitats, listening carefully. Not long after I got there an owl did give me a close fly-by, startling me enough that I jumped. I'm assuming it was probably the expected short-eared owl, but who knows for sure!

As soon as it started becoming light more and more birds began chirping, peeping,  and calling. My first species of the day was actually a bald eagle!

Since I was up and out anyway, and this is a good time of day for birding, I decided to continue further to the south end of the island and see if I could find anything else interesting. As soon as I was pulling into the road to South Beach, however, my attention was diverted from birds to what turned into a pretty darn spectacular sunrise:

The sun itself came into view just as I crested the rise heading towards the Cattle Point Lighthouse:

While watching the sunrise, a flock of 15 ravens came by. Here are a few of them:

There were a pair of red-tailed hawks and a northern harrier patrolling the prairie near the lighthouse. The waters were rougher than I expected off of Cattle Pass, but I was still able to find the expected surf scoters and bufflehead as well as a Pacific loon, a red-necked grebe, several pigeon guillemots, and a half dozen red-breasted mergansers among the choppy surf.

After having been out birding for close to two hours, I decided to head home. I got in the car, started the engine, and did a U-turn to head back to town. I immediately stepped on the brakes. Kiting right above the middle of the road, about 50 feet in the air, was a rough-legged hawk (157) - an incarnation of the birding spirit and my quest for that one more species. I'm often pretty reserved, but I'll admit that I whooped in excitement at this white hawk in the sky. As I've written in previous posts, while I keep a lot of bird lists, I wouldn't saying listing is my main motivation for birding. I set goals and try to reach them, but I won't go the extremes some do to add that one more species. I would be fine if I stayed at 156 species for the county for the year, and not just because Ryan's already bested that mark all the way to 161. Still, there was something magical in just being ready to pack it in for the day, turning around, and having that one more species literally hovering right in front of me, lit up by the golden light of the sunrise. In one sense, it was just another hawk. In another, it's a bird I will never forget.

Another Summery Week

We've been enjoying another sunny, warm week on San Juan Island, finally getting the summer weather we've long been anticipating! It's made for a pleasant commute to work by bike, outdoor afternoons, west side sunsets, Shakespeare under the stars, and of course: bird and whale watching.

Ravens cavorting above False Bay

I've been seeing as many as 500+ peeps at False Bay, made up mostly of western sandpipers but with some least sandpipers mixed in. It's very cool to see them in such numbers. If there's been anything rarer mixed in, like a semipalmated sandpiper, I haven't been able to find it. But that certainly doesn't mean it's not in there somewhere!

Western sandpiper at False bay

Least sandpiper at False Bay

Just before leaving False Bay one afternoon I spotted a small hawk perched in a tree. I thought at first maybe it was a merlin, but as soon as I got the binoculars on it I saw that it was something else: a sharp-shinned hawk (year bird 189). Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks are notoriously difficult for identifying in the field, but this bird was small, with a small head, thin legs, and, when it flew, quick, erratic wingbeats - all clues it was indeed a sharp-shinned.

Also this week was the San Juan County Fair, a yearly tradition that's a big hit with our local community. In addition to our home-brewed beer winning a blue ribbon, Keith played acoustic guitar for an hour-long set:

Today, I headed out to Lime Kiln hoping to find some whales. It sounded like they were coming down from the north, so I settled in to wait. It was a real surprise when seven whales suddenly came up from the south! It was the L2s and L54s, presumably going north to meet up with the other whales.

L2 Grace and her adult son L78 Gaia

About half an hour later, the whales did come back south. K20 Spock and K38 Comet passed pretty close to shore, while K27 Deadhead and calf K44 were a little further off.

K20 Spock and her seven year-old son K38 Comet

Many whales were way offshore a mile or more, but another big group of whales did pass about 200 yards offshore. IDs were difficult because of the back-lighting, but I saw whales from the J14, L55, L47, and L26 matrilines - if all members of these family groups were there, that would be 23 whales, which seemed about right. 

People wonder sometimes with all the whales I've seen and all the photos I've taken if there's still new shots to be gotten. Of course there is! The whales are always in different groups, doing different things in different places. Here's something I had never seen before - a big male (I believe J30 Riptide) is doing a pec slap as a calf comes to the surface in front of him (click to see a larger view):

There were sort of three groups traveling parallel to one another, each maybe about 50 yards apart. Here's four whales from the "middle" group surfacing together.

Finally, I wanted to announce that next week Saturday, the 27th, I'll be participating in a Northwest Blogger Scavenger Hunt! Or rather, I hope that you will be participating! There are so many great Pacific Northwest blogs, and a few of us, recruited by author Pat Lichen, are banding together in this creative endeavor. On the 27th, a list of questions will be posted on Pat's blog, and the answers will be found on each of the participant's blog sites, including one here on Orca Watcher. Your job is to visit all the blogs, find the correct answers, and submit them by the end of the day of the 27th. In addition to seeing some great photos and reading some interesting writing, all correct answers will be entered in a drawing to win a prize from one of the bloggers. Our hope is that our readers will learn about some of the other interesting blogs out there in a more interesting manner than just off a blog roll, so please come back next Saturday to participate!