Part 2: An Epic Encounter With the T2Cs

Now that you've met the T2Cs in my previous post, the stage is set for the amazing encounter we had with them from shore at Reuben Tarte County Park!

Perhaps in part because they travel slow on account of Tumbo, when the T2Cs show up they seem to hang around for many days at a time. I actually got to see them three times over the course of five days. First, on March 7th, as they passed Reuben Tarte:

Second, on March 9th as they headed north past San Juan County Park:

But the real encounter for the ages was on the morning of Sunday, March 11th when word came in from a friend of a small group of orcas heading north from near Friday Harbor. When we got out to Reuben Tarte County Park, we were one of the first ones there, but more and more "orcaholics" gathered on the shoreline over the next hour. Blows were visible well to the south and it was clear they were heading in our direction, but very slowly. Before they were anywhere near close enough to ID, I just had the feeling it was the T2Cs again, and that it would be worth the wait.

Watching through binoculars, it was at first the mom and three offspring traveling together with Tumbo trailing behind. As they approached O'Neal Island, however, T2C1 Rocky split off to travel with Tumbo, and they headed out into San Juan Channel while T2C Tasu and her two youngest offspring went inside of O'Neal. The three whales were closer to shore and reached us first, but when they surfaced right in front of us they stalled out. My guess is they either corralled a seal or perhaps pinned one to the bottom, because the two brothers immediately reacted. Both Rocky and Tumbo picked up speed and became surface active on their way towards the others. 

Inverted tail slap from T2C1 Rocky

Rocky reached the group first and my somewhat educated but still wild guess is that he and the others were taking turns pinning the seal to the bottom. Mom and the two youngsters would surface while Rocky disappeared on a long dive, and then vice versa. Meanwhile, as he so often does, Tumbo held back, nearby, but not part of the action. Then, I don't know if the seal bolted or if they already had it, but all of them veered towards shore right where we were all gathered on the rocks.

Heading right for us!

Baby T2C4 did a series of dolphin leaps - always such a cool thing to see from an orca!

They all came in for an ultra-close pass - here are some zoomed out photos to give a little perspective.

And some zoomed in shots of whales, up close and personal!

T2C Tasu

Love it when you can see them underwater!

Underside of a tail fluke

T2C3 Lucy and T2C4 - an amazing perspective to get, especially from shore!

T2C1 Rocky

If we had any doubts about whether their hunt had been successful, our questions were soon answered. Gulls started coming down to the surface to look for scraps, and a bald eagle even swooped down and grabbed a piece of meat from the surface!

Gulls coming in to enjoy the spoils

But the most compelling proof was when one whale surfaced with intestines draped over their back - kinda gives a new meaning to "playing with your food"!

I'm not sure if they made more than one kill or were just enjoying the celebration, but it was clear they weren't in any hurry to go anywhere, and as they drifted a little ways off the rocks, the whole group got more surface active with tail slaps, spy hops, and breaches.

Tail slap from T2C2 Rocky

Just when it looked like they were going to go north, they turned and started coming back towards us. In the end, they were "milling and killing" right off Reuben Tarte for just over an hour!

Big size difference: 16 year-old Rocky and 1.5 year old T2C4

Mama T2C Tasu

They eventually did make their way back south down San Juan Channel, leaving all the human observers breathless on the shoreline. There were smiles all around!

A Groundhog Day Visit From J-Pod

Seeing the whales is always a gift, but especially today after a week of gray rainy weather and not feeling well. The sun even came out for a few minutes as we waited for their approach to Reuben Tarte County Park! At first they were spread out and moving very slowly north, but as they neared they grouped up into what looked like a resting line with the dramatic landscape of Orcas Island behind them.

On their last surfacing as they passed us, they made a distinct turn west towards Spieden Channel, so we re-located to a friend's property further north - good decision! The whales were still moving slowly and took their time getting there, but once they did, this was the first surfacing we saw, of two them in the cove just east of where we were standing:

The J17s were in the lead and closest to shore.

J35 Tahlequah and J47 Notch

They were followed closely by L87 Onyx.

L87 Onyx with Spieden Island in the background

Most of the rest of the whales were trailing in a large, slower moving group; it's always such a thrill to see so many dorsal fins at the surface one right after another!

While this wasn't my best photo of the day, I love it because it shows just how much J38 Cookie has grown! That's J27 Blackberry on the left for comparison.

And one farewell tail slap for good measure!

While this was my first time really seeing J-Pod in 2018 (other than a few far away blows, also in San Juan Channel, on January 14th), I got the treat of listening to them on the Lime Kiln hydrophones for nearly two hours on January 28th. Here's a clip of some of the best vocalizations from that evening. And for comparison, just 24 hours earlier the T100s and some of the T124s were also vocalizing on the Lime Kiln hydrophones - hear a clip of their vocals here.

Next up, a change of scenery, a change of climate, and a change of wildlife! I'm sure more blog posts will be coming soon.

August 25: The T34s, T36As, T37, and T37Bs

On the afternoon of August 25th we heard about killer whales near Waldron Island, so I headed out to Reuben Tarte on the northeast side of San Juan Island to take a look. When I first got there, there were 2 groups, both pretty far away: one near Flattop and one near Jones. Suddenly the group from Jones, which had been aiming south down San Juan Channel, porpoised over to Spieden Channel, and it looked like both groups would go west and out of sight. Something made me pause for a couple minutes before leaving, however, and am I ever glad I did! Suddenly the two groups merged and on their next surfacing where aiming right for the rocks where I was standing! It was the T34s, T36As, T37, and T37Bs - 11 whales.

The above two photos look so much like a group of resident killer whales approaching shore at Lime Kiln. It's still amazing to me that we are having these sorts of encounters here so regularly now with transients! 

It looked like they were going down on a longer dive right as they were reaching us, so I was afraid they would bypass us on shore entirely. Then I looked down and saw the unmistakable form of a killer whale underwater right off the rocks!

This was T34A, who was perhaps sent out on seal patrol, as she went up and back along the rocks, not surfacing until her return trip.

T34A

That one close pass would have been enough to make the encounter a special one, but the rest of the whales weren't far behind. Here is a bit of an odd combination in, from top to bottom, T36A1, T37, and new calf of this year T34B.

An odd combo from top to bottom: T36A1, T37, and calf T34B

I had seen T34B a couple times this year, but not until I saw it in this lighting did I realize how pale and mottled he or she is! Really bizarre coloration.

Odd coloring and pigmentation visible on T34B, who was traveling here with T37

The three T37Bs also came in fairly close and all surfaced together:

From left to right: T37B, T37B2, and T37B1

The whales spent some time milling near O'Neal island before getting too far away to see very well, giving me about 45 minutes of observation time from shore - quite a lot for Ts who often pass quickly right on by! This group continued south down San Juan Channel and passed Friday Harbor, but then I heard from a friend that they flipped and were coming back north. The late afternoon timing was perfect for us to jump on the boat and meet up with them again in nearly the same spot I saw them earlier, but now going north. It looked like they might take Spieden Channel, but for the second time that afternoon they doubled back and on this occasion ended up going on the north side of Spieden Island west through New Channel. Talk about a spectacular setting for an evening encounter!

There's just something about backlit blows, something made even more perfect with a black backdrop.

For the whole time I observed them on this day they kept splitting into two groups, nearly coming together and merging into one group, then splitting again, with members of the T36As and T37 regularly switching groups. It made it hard to keep track of who was where, but interesting to speculate on what they might be doing and why.

After giving us those awesome backlit blows, they switched to the other side of the channel where the lighting was equally amazing but totally different.

Yet again after no more than a minute or two they split into 2 groups, and at first we followed one as they made their way west into Haro Strait. The other one was way inshore towards Johns Pass and Stuart Island, so before we left we went over there to see what they were up to. It was a group of 5 of them and they seemingly were on the hunt, perhaps pinning a seal to the bottom as they kept taking turns diving and were circling in the same spot for more than 20 minutes.

T36A1

If I had to guess, I would say their hunt was successful; we started seeing some surface activity, but never anything definitive like birds coming in for meat scraps.

June 29th: Sunset Js -- July 1st and 3rd: Ts

On June 29th, J-Pod and the K14s were back in Haro Strait after spending a few days at the Fraser River. They flipped back south before going north in the mid-afternoon, but they did go north past Lime Kiln just before sunset.

Early morning and sunset whales - there's nothing better.

Light was fading quickly but we've seen so little of these guys this spring that we couldn't help but hop on our boat for another short encounter before dark. We met up with the J19s and J11s at Open Bay, and J51 Nova was in an exuberant mood!

J51 Nova

These whales had been the lead group, moving quickly north on the flood tide, with most of the rest of J-Pod in a large, slower moving group behind them. We were a bit surprised that they all stalled out on their journey north, as we didn't see the large group. From what we heard from others, it sounds like they were milling around County Park until after dark, when they did all finally go north.

J27 Blackberry in Haro Strait at dusk

Right before we had to go in, we got a beautiful look at J31 Tsuchi.

J31 Tsuchi

They made one more trip up north but then snuck out during the following evening, and again no Southern Residents have been seen since. We had resident whales in inland waters for just 24 days through April, May, and June of this year. The average from 1990-2016 over the same time period is 60 days. The crashing spring Chinook runs on the Fraser River seem the likely culprit for this drastic change.

While it doesn't make up for the scarcity of our resident orcas, the transient killer whale sightings continue to be off the hook. Unfortunately for us most have them have been too far away for us to see, but we did get a couple of looks at the T49As over the 4th of July weekend. They've been looping around the San Juan Islands a lot, and even made two visits INTO Friday Harbor and one into Roche Harbor (on a holiday weekend no less, those crazy whales!). On July 1st we saw them from the Friday Harbor Labs as they headed north up San Juan Channel.

Spyhop from male T49A1

We got a nice look at them as they passed, but then they stopped and made a kill just north of us, giving us a longer view from shore. At one point a lot of of blood was visible on the surface of the water, leaving no doubt as to what was causing them to linger!

The T49As surface amid a blood slick from their latest marine mammal kill

Eventually they did continue north, and so did we, catching them again from Reuben Tarte, where two of them made an incredibly close pass to an unsuspecting fishing boat! This whale never even surfaced, but lingered for a second alongside this boat, long enough for the people on board to move over and look straight down at it! In this photo you can see the white of the whale's chin and eyepatch right below the hull of the boat:

The T49As continue on their way

Two days later, on July 3rd, the T49As were in San Juan Channel again, this time heading north with the T65As and T75Bs. We saw them from a distance from Cattle Pass as they entered the channel and then as they milled in Griffin Bay, but we got our best look from the shores of the Friday Harbor Labs. We got there before the whales came into view so we had no idea which side of the channel they were on, or even for sure if they were still headed our way, so this was a very welcome sight:

Yes! Right place, right time

Again they gave some unsuspecting fishermen an incredible experience!

It was a short, but nice, pass.

Males T49A1 and T65A2, traveling together

We tried seeing them again from Reuben Tarte, but by that point in time they had crossed to the far side of the channel and were hard to see. So our last good look was this head lift by T49A1:

That catches you up on my whale encounters for the last week - now I'm ready to have more! :) Well, there was one more unusual superpod spotted on July 4th - at the parade in Friday Harbor. More than 130 Orca Protectors from 16 local organizations came together to march under the banner "Protect What You Love". We carried dorsal fins for every member of the Southern Resident Community of killer whales, plus ghost fins for the 7 whales we lost last year, and many salmon and other sea creatures. It was an impressive sight, taking up much of Spring Street as orca vocalizations played over an amplifier! This picture doesn't quite give the scene justice, but you'll have to imagine more of this stretched out in both directions. Our entry won the judge's choice award among all parade entries and was declared the unofficial overall favorite.

A superpod of Orca Protectors at the 4th of July Parade

As amazing as the transient encounters have been, this was a great reminder to everyone that this *should* be a peak time for visits from J-, K-, and L-Pods. We will not let their absence go unremarked upon, even if there are other whales around to enjoy.