Double Trip, Double Superpod

This morning was one of those days we left the dock without an orca report. The word was the resident orcas had all headed out to the open ocean, as they do from time to time throughout the season, and no one had seen them coming back in. We decided to head south to check out an area where several minke whales have been seen lately doing a lot of lunge feeding at the surface, but just as we pulled out of Cattle Pass we got the word we were all waiting for – there was a large group of orcas heading towards San Juan Island! The bad news was they were still quite a ways off, well west of Victoria on Vancouver Island, in fact, but we decided to move towards them in hopes of catching up with them.

No one was quite sure which orcas they were, or if they were even residents or transients, but by the time we got on scene it was quite apparent we had all three pods (a superpod) traveling together. There were groups of dorsal fins no matter which direction you looked! We got a nice look at the J14s traveling with J1 and J2, along with the K11s and K12s traveling together with the city of Victoria in the background. We saw a lot of breaches and cartwheels in a row.

The K11s with Victoria in the background - this one's worth clicking for a larger view.

An orca cartwheeling - or launching its tail end up into the air over its front end. The head of the whale is on the right, you can see the dorsal fin on its back, and its tail is concealed in the splash its making.

Of course it was during all this that my camera battery died – and I committed the photographer’s worst sin of not having a back-up with me. So I enjoyed the rest of the experience without the camera, and with a happy boat we headed back to Friday Harbor.

On the morning trip we picked up the whales west of Trial Island - just about as far west as we will ever travel on one of our trips. This is the lighthouse on Trial Island.

As we set off again in the afternoon, we wondered if the second trip could possibly be as good since we saw so many whales traveling together in the morning. I had a feeling because my camera was out of commission, however, we would see something good, and I was right.

The whales had still been traveling closer to San Juan Island and by the time we pulled out of Cattle Pass they were right in front of us, hanging out just off South Beach. The first whale we came across was K21 Cappuccino, who seemed to be hanging out by himself doing some foraging. He was down on a long dive, and in the meantime his sister K40 Raggedy gave us a really nice pass and we could clearly see the notches on the trailing edge of her dorsal fin that are her namesake. Suddenly Cappuccino surprised us and actually swam right under the boat, surfacing first on one side, then on the other.

K21 Cappuccino - I eked out a few more pictures from my battery, which had rested for a few hours.

As Cappuccino and Raggedy moved on, we started to follow a small group of L-Pod whales. A mother and calf were traveling side by side close to shore, and we watched as the calf breached six times in a row. Then mom got into it, as well, and they two of them rolled and splashed at the surface as they continued towards Cattle Point Lighthouse. “Hmm,” we thought, “They are heading right for Cattle Pass!” I mentioned in my last post how unusual it is for them to travel so close to shore there, but today they did something even more unusual – they actually entered Cattle Pass and started swimming north up San Juan Channel!!

This was especially great for us as this was the route back to Friday Harbor, so we followed along as the first group of whales, including big male L41 Mega, entered the channel. Before long, it seemed like there are L-Pod whales everywhere, all heading up the channel.

It’s unusual to see the whales in San Juan Channel, though it does happen a couple of times a season. Usually they stay out in the larger straits, presumably because that’s where more salmon can be found. An interesting note about Cattle Pass, the southern end of San Juan Channel, is that there is some extreme current action there. The combination of bizarre underwater geography with huge depth changes, up to a twelve foot tidal exchange between high and low tides, and the narrow channel make for some intense and unpredictable currents in that area complete with upwellings, back eddies, tide rips, whirlpools, and every kind of water you can imagine. Today, it really looked like the L-Pod whales were just playing in those strong currents. They were rolling around at the surface, slapping their fins, spyhopping, and it honestly just looked like they were enjoying be pushed around by the water!

L41 Mega in Cattle Pass

Of course I was kicking myself the whole time for not having my camera, while everyone else on board snapped away throughout the entire encounter. Sometimes, though, its special to just take the whole scene in, without looking through a viewfinder. I have to admit, while I would have loved to have more photos from today, it was a pretty special sight just to watch. Humorously, before long, our passengers were starting to complain of dead camera batteries, too…and I should have taken this as a sign that we were about to have a really special encounter before it was time to head home.

Our engines were cut and we spun in the currents watching various L-Pod whales around us. Suddenly a group of three whales we hadn’t seen before came up off the bow, and swam all along the side of the boat. The amazing thing was you could actually see them underwater, which is always a memorable experience. One of the animals actually was swimming upside down, and it was a male (we could tell because we could see his belly markings!), and I think he was with two females. I wish I knew who they were but I honestly don’t know!

It was a truly spectacular day on the water and I wish I had more photos to share. Julie, our other naturalist who was on board this afternoon with a fully charged camera, will send a few shots my way that I will post on here as well.

"Explorer"ing in the Rain With Js and Ls

This morning we went out on the Western Explorer, our zodiac style boat, with an adventurous family that didn't mind the drizzle. We donned ski goggles in addition to our anti-exposure suits and off we went in search of wildlife. On the way down San Juan Channel we saw both adult and juvenile bald eagles as well as a bald eagle nest, and several hundred harbor seals hauled out on Whale Rocks. As we pulled out into the Straits we were surprised to see that the whales we had heard about were much closer than anticipated - right in front of us in fact!

The first two whales we caught up with were brothers J39 Mako (six years old) and J27 Blackberry (18 years old). I've mentioned before about these two brothers and their sister J31 Tsuchi having lost their mother last year, and I'm always glad to see them still sticking tight together despite her loss. Mako is old enough to survive on his own, but it's a lot nicer (for me, and I'm assuming for him, too) to see him traveling right next to his big brother.

Soon the drizzle stopped, and we stopped the boat to observe what would happen next. There had been whales both offshore and inshore of us, but it looked like two groups were starting to converge in front of us. We watched as Mako and Blackberry met up with some other J-Pod whales. As they got together they stopped traveling and started doing this bizarre circling and logging (just hanging out at the surface like a log). Then they all surfaced together facing back the way they had just come:

"Hmm, what are they doing?" we wondered. A moment later, however, Captain Ivan spotted another line of whales coming up from the southeast. They must have decided to wait for the rest of their pod to catch up! Here's the further group of whales heading towards us:

As they neared each other, both lines of whales stayed at the surface for a moment, then they all dove, and where there had once been more than a dozen dorsal fins there were now none. We waited and waited, wondering just what they were up to under the surface. As the minutes dragged on we started scanning farther and farther away wondering if they were traveling some distance underwater before coming back up. Finally we spotted them - both groups had met up and were now traveling north together. It is absolutely one of my favorite things to see when you witness this many orcas all surfacing together:

By looking at my photos I was able to confirm that we were actually with ALL of J-Pod - every single family member was present in this group that was traveling tightly together. That's 26 whales!

There were several neat things that stood out to me today, and both of them are captured in the photo below. One is seeing the oldest male (58 year-old J1 Ruffles) and oldest female (98 year-old J2 Granny) in the Southern Resident Community traveling together. They are speculated to be either brother and sister or mother and son, and it's always a treat to see them together. The other neat thing was seeing so many tall male fins in J-Pod. Not too long ago, Ruffles was the only adult male in J-Pod. Not so any more! Here are Ruffles and Granny seen surfacing with young male J30 Riptide, who now has a fin almost as tall as Ruffles':

It was drizzly out, but it wasn't windy, which allowed their blows to just hang in the air. With the dark trees of Lopez Island behind them, the spouts really stood out. Here are, from back to front, J28 Polaris, J1 Ruffles, an unknown J-Pod member, and J2 Granny:

Not only was all of J-Pod there, but "honorary" J-Pod members L7 Canuck and L53 Lulu were also traveling with them. Other L-Pod whales were spread out offshore of us, but Canuck and Lulu have spent more time with J-Pod over the last year or so than with the rest of their family. It's unusual for whales to travel with another pod in preference to their own for any length of time. Canuck is Lulu's mother, and they aren't known to be closely related to any other L-Pod matrilines, so perhaps this gives them more "freedom" to roam away from their pod. We just don't know for sure. Lulu and then Canuck are the left two whales in this photo:

Usually when the orcas travel across Cattle Pass between Lopez and San Juan Islands, they do so quickly and a ways offshore. Not so today - they did just the opposite. Here you can see a line of J-Pod whales with the houses of Cape San Juan (which is a housing community at the southern most tip of San Juan Island) in the background:

They continued surfacing slowly together as we passed Cattle Point Lighthouse, making for one more fantastic photo op before we headed back to Friday Harbor after an interesting, if a little damp, morning on the water:

First "Blogoversary"! And July Wildflowers

It's hard to believe, but it was a year ago today that I started my blog! My first post featured some Dall's porpoise photos, and I have featured many species since then from orcas to other whales, seals, sea lions, flowers, birds, mushrooms, otters, insects....I first thought I would focus mostly on cetaceans but my true inner naturalist has won over and this has really become an outlet for all my natural curiosities.

I didn't know what to expect when I started my blog, but the first year has been pretty successful. Here are a few stats to sum up year number one - thank you for being part of the journey!

In my first year I have posted 237 times and had 5,275 unique visitors, 57% of whom have returned again. I have had hits from 85 different countries and more than 1700 cities, with the top 5 nations represented being the United States, Germany, the UK, Canada, and France. Iran and India are also in the top 10. Pretty cool stuff! Here's to another successful year between now and July 2010....who knows how many awesome sights I have yet to see! You can be sure I will continue sharing them with you as my adventures continue.

But it wouldn't be appropriate for my first blogoversary post not to feature some photos, so here are some wildflowers I saw out on a walk today.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) - turns out I was wrong a couple months ago when I identified one of the plants on my street as self-heal. It was actually purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum).

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Western dock (Rumex occidentalis)

Almost-but-not-quite-yet-bloomed-out western St. John's wort (Hypercium perforatum)

K-Pod From the Western Prince

This afternoon we had another great encounter with the Southern Resident orcas on our trip out on the Western Prince. We met up with a southbound K-Pod at Turn Point. They were heading towards the northbound J and L Pods, and seemed to be in quite a playful mood. We saw a lot of these inverted tail slaps:

We spent a lot of time paralleling the K11 family group, a group of seven whales spanning four generations. K11 Georgia, estimated to be 76, is the oldest member of K-Pod and the matriarch of this family group. Georgia is the mother of K13 Skagit, who has four living offspring of her own. One of Skagit's offspring is K20 Spock, shown here with her calf K38 Comet - who is the great grandson of K11 Georgia:

The whole K11 family group was traveling in a tight group together. While you can't see all the saddle patches for IDs in the photo below, I had a whole sequence of photos of them surfacing and was able to piece together who was who. What I really like about this shot is you can actually see Skagit and all four of her offspring together. From left to right, the whales in the photo below are K34 Cali (8 year old male), K25 Scoter (18 year old male), K27 Deadhead, (15 year old female), K20 Spock (23 year old female), and K13 Skagit (37 year old mother of the group).

Here's the next shot in the sequence of brother Scoter and sister Deadhead with their mother Skagit:

Remember how I saw the whales in front of a freighter the other day? Today, a Washington State Ferry stopped to watch the whales. You can see a few of them surfacing in front of the ferry in the photo below - click to see a larger version. It's crazy how they were swimming towards such a large vessel that was at that time still moving!

Right before we left, Ks started to meet up with at least some J-Pod members as we saw J1 Ruffles, but there wasn't an explosion of activity at the surface that we thought we might witness as the pods met up after being split apart overnight (sometimes there's lots of active socializing when the pods reunite).

After getting back to Friday Harbor and grabbing the now traditional Sunday afternoon ice cream cone, Sarah (who also works at Western Prince) and I decided to head out to the west side to see if the whales were heading in that direction. Sure enough, we pulled up to Land Bank just in time to see the last of them head south. It sounded like all three pods were still together, and they were aiming offshore, which makes me think they might heading out to the ocean. Before we lost sight of them all offshore, K12 Sequim and her daughter K22 Sekiu came by pretty close to shore. Here is a shot of Sekiu with kelp draped off of her dorsal fin:

Also, today on the Prince we had a few visitors from The World, a 12 story, 644 foot cruise ship that is owned by the residents that live aboard it. Some people stay onboard year round, while others come and go from their floating private condos, joining the ship in different ports and sailing for weeks or months at a time. As its name suggests, the ship sails around the world, spending only a few days in each port before moving on. In the rest of 2009, it will travel up to Alaska, through the Bering Sea, down the Russian coast and through Japan and past some Pacific Islands before ending up in Australia in December. Remarkably, this huge ship carries only 250 crew and no more than 330 live-aboard residents, usually less. The vessel is so large that it has to anchor in Griffin Bay, a 30 minute tender ride to Friday Harbor for its residents.

It's hard to appreciate just how large this ship is without anything to directly compare it to, but right alongside the ship is one of its tender boats that can carry up to 50 people. When we stopped to take a few photos of the ship (it moves on tomorrow), there were many other island residents doing the same.

Happy Fourth! And Explorer Trip Superpod

Happy Fourth of July everyone! We had some nice fireworks here in Friday Harbor, as we do every year. What's awesome is we can watch them right from the docks at our marina.

But I get ahead of myself. The first thing that happened today was another trip on the Western Explorer. When we left the dock it sounded like some of the whales were heading out west towards the Pacific Ocean and a small group of L-Pod whales was on the westside. Once we got on scene, though, it turned out all three pods decided to stay in, and we ended up seeing whales from all three pods.

The first whale we came across way off shore was male J30 Riptide. The whales were really spread out, so after a while we headed in shore to check out some whales who were more grouped up. They were all pretty much milling - heading north for a while, then west offshore, then south, then back east towards shore.

We had a really nice pass by J34 Doublestuf, an 11 year-old male who is already got a "fin sprout" and has grown a lot taller since last year. If you look closely (click on the photo to see a larger version) you can see a notch in his dorsal fin, which is new as of last year:

I was only identifying mostly J-Pod whales out on the water, but once I got home and looked at my photos I found L22 Spirit, shown surfacing here in front of False Bay. She's a 38 year-old female who is the mother of two sons. We were seeing a lot of tall dorsal fins in the area, so they were probably nearby when we were viewing them. Their family group is part of the L12 sub-group that often splits off from the rest of L-Pod.

Later in the evening, we were treated to a spectacular pink and blue sunset before the fireworks. Here's the view from the back deck of our houseboat:

And THEN came the fireworks :)

Western Explorer Trip - Js, Ks, and Ls off Turn Point

It was another warm morning today, so it felt great to get on the water and into the cool breeze for a trip on the Western Explorer. We started out by cruising along Spieden Island, where we saw some exotic Mouflon sheep, a couple of harbor seal moms and pups, and some great views of bald eagles. We came across the eagle who was sitting on the ground, and it looked like it was getting ready to take flight, so we stayed put for a minute to wait and see. Sure enough, it took flight and headed over to perch near its nest.

You can see the huge eagle nest above the perched eagle on the right side of the trunk. There is a chick in the nest this year, but it must have been hunkered down out of sight.

K and L pods came in from the ocean last night and met up with J-Pod. Today, we were excited to hear that all three pods were still together. When we caught up with them north of San Juan Island, we saw mostly J and K Pod whales. Supposedly there were some Ls with them, and the rest of L-Pod turned around and was hanging out off the south end of San Juan Island. There were still A LOT of dorsal fins to be seen, as there were maybe 50-60 whales in the vicinity and many of them were traveling in tight groups:

There were dorsal fins near and far, since some whales were close to shore and other groups were stretched out across the strait. This picture captures some of that, but I also like it because of who's in it. That's J14 Samish with five-year-old J40 Suttles in the foreground and J19 Shachi and four-year-old J41 Eclipse in the background. When Suttles and Eclipse were just a year or two old, I often saw them playing together and chasing each other around, with one mom or the other babysitting the two of them while the other one got the afternoon "off":

Being 4th of July weekend, there was a decent amount of boat traffic out and about. Not just whale-watchers and private yachters, but we actually saw the Washington State Ferry en route from Sidney, BC to Friday Harbor stop and watch the whales. A freighter also came through - one of about 30 or so that heads through Haro Strait every day. Here you can see the tall dorsal fins of adult males J30 Riptide (in the back) and K21 Cappuccino (up front) as the freighter goes past:

Cappuccino was traveling with his big sister K40 Raggedy, as he often does. The two of them are pretty inseperable. K40 has an interesting story, as she was originally identified as being an L-Pod whale and was designated L40. When they figured out she really belonged in K-Pod, they changed her alphanumeric designation to K40, and never named another L40 to avoid confusion. She's also a 45 year-old female that has never been seen with a calf, so the speculation is she may be infertile. I bet you can tell by looking closely at the picture below (click on it for a larger version if you have to) why her name is Raggedy:

Turn Island Picnic and More Westside Whales

Today was an awesome summer day in the San Juan Islands. I didn't have to work today, so I finally got to take up my neighbor on his offer to take us over to Turn Island in his 13 foot zodiac. Turn Island is a small island that is designated as a State Park not too far from Friday Harbor. We decided to take a picnic lunch over there this afternoon. Here I am on the ride en route to Turn:

On the way we got to check out a couple of harbor seal haul outs. I saw my first harbor seal pup of the season last Sunday, the 28th of June, and look forward to seeing more in the near future.

Here we are approaching Turn Island:


The island has camping, picnic, and moorage facilities.

Before lunch, we decided to walk the trail that goes around the island. I had been here once before, and the trail was longer than I remembered. It weaves through the woods and along the shoreline cliffs:

Just before we got back the cove where our boat was pulled out, this ragged looking sub-adult bald eagle swooped by overhead:

After we finished lunch we decided to drive around in the zodiac and do some sight-seeing. The best part is, I even got to drive the boat for a little while! We circled around Brown Island, which is the island we look across to from our Marina. I have seen this carved bald eagle totem pole before, but had never gotten a close look at it until today:

Once we got back home, we heard that all three pods of whales had met up and were probably headed towards the westside of San Juan Island. We raced out there, and while most of the whales were several miles offshore, we got there just in time to see the closest group pass by. What was really cool was that several males seemed to be hanging out together. At one point you could see no fewer than six tall male dorsal fins at the surface at once! Here is a young male giving a tail slap:

An adult male is surfacing in the foreground, in front of a whale that was swimming upside down at the surface. Just before this picture was taken, the rear whale had both pectoral fins in the air and did an inverted tailslap. Here he is rolling over to give a pec slap, practically hitting the whale surfacing right in front of him.

We came back home after the whales all headed north and had a barbecue dinner with some friends. All in all, a fantastic summer day in the islands!