Minke Whales, Steller Sea Lions, and Sea Birds

This morning the orcas were all way up north by the city of Vancouver, BC and heading north (away from us), so we decided to go south to see if any might have stayed down there and to see what other great wildlife we could find. On our way down San Juan Channel we came across a big Steller sea lion in the water, which actually came right at us and checked us out! We also saw several harbor seals, including this one which also popped up close to the boat:

The seas were a little bit rougher out where Haro Strait meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca but we decided to give it a good circle about four miles offshore to see if we could find any orcas or minke whales. At first, all we saw were lots and lots of birds. There were a couple of bait balls where multiple species of gull were foraging, and we also saw several rafts that probably totaled at least a couple hundred rhinoceros auklets. There were a few groups of common murres, and several red-necked phalaropes. The phalaropes are so tiny but they never seem to skittish of boats, so I was able to get this shot of one in flight:

After adding only a single bird to my species year list (the Heermann's gull) in July, I knew I would be hard pressed to add any more species in August. But with Dave recently adding the black redstart and little owl to his European year list, I just had to follow suit! There was no better way to do than with the sighting of a single Cassin's auklet (215) today. I only had the briefest of looks, but there's no other small, stocky charcoal-colored sea bird that it could have been. What a great find! I'll have to look for more of them next time I'm out there.

As we looped back towards San Juan Island we were successful in picking up a minke whale, but it was living up to it's name as a slinky minke and we didn't get the best of looks as it zig-zagged around in the choppy water. After watching it for three or four sets of surfacings, we headed back towards Cattle Pass where a half-dozen Steller sea lions were hauled out on the rocks. We have now been seeing these guys regularly for the last week, so it appears they are "back" for the winter - a good month earlier than normal! I wonder if these are some males that weren't as successful breeding this year and decided to hit the foraging grounds early? Or perhaps with the increase in the sea lion population they are simply expanding their range - that would be nice! Whatever the reason, it is good to see them.

By the way, check out that water in front of the sea lions! The waves in Cattle Pass were pretty impressive on the incoming flood tide, looking more like river rapids than anything else as they often do in that area.

Before heading back to Friday Harbor we got a report of another minke whale, this time in the calmer waters of San Juan Channel. We got much better views of this animal, which was also larger than the first minke whale we saw.

On its last surfacing before we had to leave, the minke came up just off the port side of the boat, close enough that we could hear it breathe! It's not often you get this view of a minke, looking from behind it directly at its dorsal fin - cool!

Today was one of those days where the orcas were just out of reach for us, but on the other hand we saw lots of other great birds and marine mammals so it was still a fantastic trip.

More Insects at Westside Lake

Intrigued by all I learned about Odonata after yesterday's visit, I decided to go back to Westside Lake today to see what else I could discover. I spent 45 minutes there and had zero luck with the dragonflies, but still found some cool stuff.

After looking at a few more online resources I think the damselfly I posted about yesterday is a bluet (Enallagma spp.). There weren't as many of them as yesterday, but they were still abundant:

Yesterday I only noticed one species of damselfly, but today I saw a Pacific forktail (Ischnura cervula), identified by its yellow-green face and the four pale blue spots on the dorsal side of the thorax:

I was also able to photograph this wasp, which I also saw yesterday. It's a bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata), which is in the same genus as the yellowjackets. It looked kind of benign to me at the time - no buzzing, no distinct stinger - so I happily co-existed with it. I'm glad I didn't know at the time that they are very protective of their nesting sites and will sting intruders multiple times if disturbed!

The hornet is crawling on a crab shell. I wonder what brought a crab all the way up from the shore to the lake?

An interesting note I learned about hornets from the Wikipedia article on the bald-faced hornet is that it is a term that means different things in the US vs. the UK. In the American sense, hornets are defined as building paper nests, as the bald-faced hornet does. A hornet in the British sense must belong to the genus Vespa, which the bald-faced hornet does not.

While I wasn't able to get any dragonfly photographs, the bird sightings made up for it by being better than yesterday. The pair of female mallards and the female hooded merganser were still present, but this time there were half a dozen wood ducks, one of which got chased across the pond by a dragonfly! I also saw a bald eagle fly overhead, a Wilson's warbler on the island in the middle of the lake, and a flock of feeding cedar waxwings:

Odonata at Westside Lake

This afternoon I stopped by Westside Lake to check out the bird activity. I only found a single wood duck in eclipse plumage, a pair of female mallards, and a female hooded merganser, but the dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) were abundant and attracted my attention.

In the time I spent there I saw no fewer than four dragonfly species, two of which I was able to photograph and identify. The first one is the eight-spotted skimmer (Libellula forensis), a species found west of the Rockies in the United States and Canada:

This one is the cardinal meadowhawk (Sympetrum illotum), distinct not only in color but for its perching posture in which it holds its wings forward instead out of out to the side. It wasn't until I looked closer at the picture at home that I realized there are naiads (nymphs) [EDIT: skins of damselflies - thanks Dave!] on the stalk of the plant under it - cool!! Now I want to go back and look closer at the real thing. (Click to see a larger view.)

Most abundant of all was a species of narrow-winged damselfly. I haven't been successful in narrowing it down to a species or even a genus - maybe someone with better resources or more knowledge of Odonata can help me identify it? Here is what appeared to be a mating pair on a blade of grass....though it looks to me like it's two males, since the females seemed to be a lot grayer? [EDIT: The females can come in two color morphs - thanks again Dave!]

More Js and Ks

Today we had whales to the north and whales to the south - never a bad situation! This morning while hiking off the sound end of the island I saw a group of active whales offshore, but this afternoon we decided to head north on the Western Prince to meet up with some whales coming down from the Fraser River.

The first group of orcas we came upon were the J17s. J17 Princess Angeline was with her one year-old J44, and one of her other daughters J35 Talequah was there with her young calf J47. Here is J47 launching out of the water. When you're little you have to get that head high out of the water on every breath!

Inshore were the J11s and J22s, but offshore towards us the next whale that came along was the adult male K21 Cappuccino.

I mentioned in a post last week about his new wound on the back of his dorsal fin. Today I was able to get a better photo and crop it in to take a closer look. It looks painful! I wonder how he got it?

As expected, Cappuccino's sister K40 Raggedy wasn't too far away. She got her name for the ragged trailing edge of her dorsal fin. She's an interesting whale, because she's a 47 year-old female that has never been seen with a calf. Is she infertile, have her calves never survived long enough for us to see them, or perhaps has she chosen to never have offspring? We don't know.

Cappuccino and Raggedy are a couple of special whales to me because they are the first whales I ever saw up close when I first came to the San Juan Islands ten years ago. Back then their mom K18 Kiska was still alive, and the three of them made quite an impression on me - enough of one that I've come back here every summer since then!

I was just listening to the hydrophones at orcasound.net and heard quite a lot of vocalizing. It sounded to me like the two groups of whales from this morning had probably met up and were enjoying socializing with one another! Hopefully all the great sightings will continue, as August has started off just as great in terms of whale encounters as was the entire month of July.

Jackson Beach Variety

Yesterday morning I went to Jackson's Beach, and while nothing was very abundant the variety of life I saw was amazing. Here's a sampling....

One of the 15+ killdeer:


Raccoon footprints:


A surprisingly large grasshopper:

There was a dead harbor seal pup in the surf which I reported to the stranding network, but I spared you the photo of that. Instead, here is a beached moon jelly:

An adult bald eagle:

There were about five different species of wildflower in bloom, but this is one I don't recognize and wasn't able to immediately find in the field guide. Any ideas?

Birds and Butterflies on the South End

The fog burned off early today - it was sunny before noon! Perfect weather for going out and doing a COASST survey on my beach. When I didn't turn up any beached birds (I wonder if I'll ever find any there?) it was perfect weather to continue on and look for some live birds.

Despite lots of people out and about enjoying the summer weather, there were some good finds at Fourth of July Beach. Out on the water were four white-winged scoters, five surf scoters, and two common loons. On the shoreline and in the mostly dry lagoon were no fewer than 16 least sandpipers, including this juvenile:

I also noticed half a dozen or more white butterflies, and, inspired by the great butterfly photos Warren and Dave keep posting, I decided to try my luck too. They sure didn't sit still for long, so this was the best I was able to do. Good enough, though, for me to identify it as a female cabbage white (Pieris rapae) - a species found all over the United States:

Down at Cattle Point things were pretty quiet in the pass with no sign of the minke whale or Steller sea lions we saw there from the boat yesterday. There were two harlequin ducks along the coastline and lots of pelagic cormorants and glaucous-winged gulls on Goose Island. As I walked out to the lighthouse I saw three swallow species (barn, violet-green, northern rough-winged) and two finch species (house, American goldfinch). I continued walking along the shoreline and in addition to seeing some orcas offshore in the distance I came upon a flock of 150 Heermann's gulls and five black oystercatchers. As I looped back to the car the most interesting species of note was a pair of Anna's hummingbirds. All in all, I saw 22 bird species in an hour and a half.

K-Pod, Half the Js, and L87

We had a couple of fantastic trips today aboard the Western Prince. This afternoon we headed out and as we made our way south down San Juan Channel stopped a couple of times to check out some harbor seal haul outs. Down in Cattle Pass, where we had seen a minke whale in the morning, we saw more seals as well as rhinoceros auklets, common murres, pigeon guillemots, pelagic cormorants, glaucous-winged gulls, mew gulls, and Heermann's gulls. What was that I said about this being a great time to bird in the San Juans?! Our biggest surprise, however, was a group of four Steller sea lions swimming together in the water! We normally expect these guys to be around from September through May and occasionally see a single animal throughout the summer, but I've never seen a group of them here in the middle of the summer! Their population is on the rise, so maybe their range is expanding and we'll get a breeding colony of sea lions established around the island sometime in the near future.

In terms of the orcas, we have had a strange combination of whales hanging out for the last day or so: K-Pod, half of J-Pod, and L87, a single L-Pod whale. When we got on scene with the orcas a mile or two off of Eagle Point the first whale we came across was the eighteen year-old male L87 Onyx. Onyx is an interesting whale who has basically become a member of K-Pod in recent years. I posted his intriguing story in a blog post last winter that you can read here.

The whales were very spread out and foraging, which meant Onyx was zig-zagging all over the place, presumably in pursuit of fish. As a result, we got to see him from all different angles. The side...

The front...


And the back!

Nearby Onyx were J27 Blackberry his younger brother J39 Mako, just like this morning. Where was the rest of Onyx's K-Pod family? As we made our way further inshore we did see K22 Sekiu, but then we came across a couple more J-Pod whales and their calves. J28 Polaris had her 10 month-old youngster J46 close by:

Polaris' sister J35 Talequah was also there with her young calf J47. Several times we saw Talequah give a tail slap, followed shortly thereafter by her calf doing the same behavior! Last weekend Talequah was teaching her calf the spyhop. This week's lesson: tail slaps!