A Quick Superpod

Last night I got word that all three Southern Resident pods were heading in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Could this be our first superpod of the year?? After hanging out with a bunch of fellow naturalists at the SSAMN BBQ last night, I decided to head to the west side and see if I could see any of them. I heard from a friend that some had already gone north, but you never know, so out I went.

When I got to the west side I could see a few whales still slowly heading north in front of Lime Kiln Point State Park. By the time I got down to the rocks they had turned and were facing south, and two whales were just lollygagging a little ways offshore. They would surface lazily before going down on another long dive, occasionally spyhopping or tailslapping. I was thrilled to identify them as K22 Sekiu and K33 Tika - my first time seeing K-Pod whales this season!

K22 Sekiu

I couldn't believe how big Tika was. He's ten years old, and has grown a lot since last year.

The whales stayed in one place for a long time, and then three or four more came down from further north. I'm pretty sure they were probably the rest of the K12s, the family group that K22 and K33 are a part of. There was one little calf that was probably K43, born last year. At this point they seemed to decide to move on, and picked up speed heading to the south.

This morning I wondered who went north, who stayed south, and who would still be around with all three pods supposedly having made it in last night. I went out to Land Bank on the west side and learned from a friend that many whales were heading out west, possibly Ks and Ls. Well, that was a very short superpod visit! There were, however, very spread out whales on the westside: J-Pod was still here. Some whales, including J2 Granny and her family group, had already passed by and were well south, but I settled in to wait for the rest of J-Pod to show up.....and they did!

J26 Mike, with the outskirts of Victoria on Vancouver Island in the background

From left to right: J17 Princess Angeline, J35 Talequah, and calf J47

As they continued south, a young whale - I think J47 - breached four or five times in a row. It was an awesome sight, with nothing but the water and the cloud-covered Olympic Peninsula in the background....

Close Encounter With J-Pod

Yesterday afternoon I headed out to Lime Kiln Point State Park, and was immediately filled with disappointment as I saw whales were already passing by heading north. Even though I thought I had missed them, I walked down to the shoreline to get a better idea of what was going on. Sure enough, as many of the observers who had watched the first passby headed back to their cars, the whales turned around and started coming back south. Perhaps because they were swimming against a strong flood tide, several of the whales came close to shore - often there is a counter current along the shoreline here which might have made for easier swimming. My disappointment was replaced with anticipation as I saw them angling in towards the lighthouse. I found myself sitting on a different rock than normal, which gave me this awesome vantage point of a whale passing the lighthouse while excited viewers looked on:

Prints of this photo available here

The whales surfaced right in front of me, probably no more than 50 feet away. There's no words to describe the feeling of being that close to a wild killer whale. Here are a few shots:

L53 Lulu, who at some time recently switched from L-Pod (with whom she spent the winter) to J-Pod, as she's done the last several years

J40 Suttles

J41 Eclipse - a very special whale to me since I saw her just a few days after she was born in 2005. It's amazing to see how much she's grown since last year. I've started making some photo galleries featuring specific whales, and by request J41 was the first whale I did. See some of my favorite photos of her here.

I compared notes with fellow whale-watcher Jeanne, and we determined that J2 Granny, J19 Shachi, J41 Eclipse, J37 Hy'shqa, J40 Suttles, J41 Eclipse, and L53 Lulu were all in the group of whales that passed close to shore. J8 Spieden and L87 Onyx were further offshore, with the rest of the J14 family group.

I headed a little further south along the shoreline, where this group of whales stalled out and foraged in the strong tide rips. (The rest of the pod was reportedly much further south in Haro Strait.) I watched them until about 5:30.

J19 Shachi with J41 Eclipse, foraging in the strong currents off of Land Bank Westside Preserve

The grand finale of the afternoon was another close passby, this time by a turkey vulture:

I'm guessing the two groups of whales eventually reunited, as between 8:30 and 9:00 PM I heard lots of great vocalizations on the Lime Kiln hydrophones.

Interesting Island Insects

Over the last week or so, while out looking for whales or birds, I've come across some interesting insects. Here's a sampling....

Cinnabar moth, Tyria jacobaeae, introduced to control ragwort

Soldier beetle, Cantharsis rotundicollis

Western tent caterpillar, Malacosoma californica - currently experiencing a big population boom on Vancouver Island, and apparently here as well as there have been a lot of them around

An as yet unidentified dragonfly....my insect book isn't very strong on Odonata...any ideas?

Oregon tiger beetle, Cicindela oregona

Sunset Orcas

As I had hoped, the whales did come in on Tuesday night, though it was after dark by the time they reached the shores of San Juan Island. They went north during the night, and made their way back south towards the westside of San Juan yesterday afternoon. They passed the lighthouse heading south, but I wasn't there to see them, being busy watching Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals (here's hoping Vancouver finds a way to right the ship, in a hurry!). After the disappointing hockey game, we decided to go to the westside and see the sunset and see what we might see. When we arrived in the parking lot at Lime Kiln Lighthouse, I said, "I think we're going to see something awesome." I turned out to be right!

There were no whales in sight when we arrived so I settled in north of the lighthouse out of the wind to watch the sunset. Several harbor porpoise were surfacing close to shore, and we were focused on watching those when all of a sudden, Kawooof! An orca surfaced right off the kelp in front of the lighthouse! Here's a one minute video clip showing some of what followed:

I love seeing the whales - and I love seeing them even more at sunset, when they're close, when it's unexpected, and when it's quiet. Last night's whale encounter was all of those things. It was a special moment, one of those whale encounters that really rejuvenates the spirit.

Prints of this photo available here

Biking with Birds and More Marina Wildlife

Finally, some warmth and sunshine! It's starting to feeling like the summer season here in Friday Harbor, and not just because all the tourists have been arriving. The weather is finally catching up to the calendar and it's nice enough to go for walks without a jacket or sweatshirt on a daily basis for the first time this year - it's awesome!

One afternoon last week I went down to American Camp for a walk in mid-afternoon, and because of the time of day it was pretty quiet. I did see a flycatcher that didn't match any of our most common species, and while it was unfortunately silent (flycatchers are easiest to identify by call), I did get the chance to get a photo of it. It wasn't a great shot, but with the input of several other birders, I'm fairly confident in calling in a western wood-pewee (182).

There's a nice six mile route to bike leaving from my house, and with the nice weather I rode it on both Saturday and Sunday. I was amazed at the number of bird species I was able to see/here just while bike riding! On Saturday I counted 28 species on my evening ride, then during the afternoon on Sunday I counted 20, including some different ones from the day before. Some highlights included violet-green, barn, and northern-rough winged swallows; olive-sided and Pacific-slope flycatchers; house finches, purple finches, and American goldfinches; California quail; orange-crowned warblers; and a Bewick's wren.

There have still been a few jellyfish around, though not nearly in the numbers as last week. I contacted a local jellyfish expert, Claudia Mills, who confirmed my IDs from my last post, although she explained that there are likely many more gregarious jellyfish (Phialidium gregarium) than aggregating jellyfish (Eutonia indicans). The former tend to outnumber the latter locally, so I'm sure there were lots of the gregarious jellies with a few aggregating jellies mixed in rather than being all aggregating as I had written. It was interesting to learn that such congregations of tiny jellyfish are typical in the spring, though this year the "invasion" was about three weeks later than normal.

Other interesting sightings continue to happen from the marina, as well. Last night there was a school of fish hanging out here, which I wouldn't hesitate to call the biggest I've ever seen. The fish were small, and densely packed together, and the school was HUGE. I wonder if there could have been a million fish there? I wonder what kind they were? Unfortunately it was getting too dark to get a very good look.

Also yesterday, a couple of river otters came through. Often we hear them at night, or they swim by at dusk when it's too dark for photos. During the day they usually just pop up quickly, too fast to go get the camera. Yesterday was an exception, though, and one even jumped out on the dock long enough for me to snap this photo:

Most people erroneously call these sea otters, but sea otters were locally extirpated from the region during the fur trade. These otters are fairly common here and do swim in the sea, but they are actually river otters. There has been a sea otter population re-established on the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula, and perhaps one day they will re-expand their range into the Salish Sea. Several years ago (2005?) there were actually several sea otter sightings here, including one off Lime Kiln Lighthouse that I was able to photograph, but for now it's still same to assume that most if not all otters seen here are river otters.

Finally, word just came tonight that many resident orcas are inbound in the Strait of Juan de Fuca! L-Pod did blow right out west as suspected after our last whale report, and no resident orcas have been seen in inland waters since then. Many, including yours truly, have been eagerly anticipating their return, and it sounds like tonight could be the night! Hopefully these whales - at least J and L Pod whales by the sounds of it - will stick around a while, and hopefully my next post will include some whale photos!

Jellyfish Invasion

There have been thousands and thousands of tiny jellyfish in the marina this week. They seem to come in waves - sometimes the ocean is full of them and other times you can only see a few individuals. Yesterday and today I spent some time on my hands and knees at the edge of the dock (with camera in hand, of course) to take a closer look, and I was surprised to see no fewer than six different species. My cnidaria ID skills are very amateur, so I'm definitely looking for input if anyone knows more than I do about my tentative species identifications.

The most abundant species is the aggregating jelly (Eutonia indicans), shown here against both a dark and a light background:

The next most abundant species, that really seems to come in waves, is the thimble jellyfish (Sarsia spp.):

The only one of these species I have seen before is the cross jelly (Mitrocoma cellularia), which has been abundant in recent summers though completely absent in years prior to that:

Now come the three I'm not so sure of, and which I only saw in very small numbers. I think this might be a water jelly species (Aequorea spp.). It doesn't seem to quite have enough "spokes", but it's the closest I can come with my Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Invertebrates, Seaweeds And Selected Fishes field guide:

This one might be a hanging stomach jelly (Stomotoca atra). If it is, as the name suggests that would be the stomach hanging out of the bell, surrounded by the lips.

Finally, and this is another tentative ID but also another great example of why jellyfish common names are awesome, the closest I can come on this one is the blob-top jelly (Neoturris breviconis):

As with most wildlife viewing efforts, you end up seeing more than your "target" species. While taking such a close look at the water I also found this coonstripe shrimp (Pandalus danae) sitting on this giant plumose anemone (Metridium farcimen):

Signs of Summer

You wouldn't know it from the weather, which continues to be cool and gray the vast majority of the time, but we are quickly approaching summer. There are other signs of the season, however, like this parent Pacific wren tending to its begging fledgling yesterday at Mt. Finlayson:

Amazing how well they blend in except for the yellow "lips" of the fledgling

The Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana) is also starting to bloom all over the island:

The baby foxes at the south end are starting to grow bigger and roam wider. The last few times I've been down there they haven't been around, but one of them was resting near the den when I took a look yesterday. They've grown so much!

Prints of this photo available here; check out my whole gallery of baby fox photos here

My other interesting find yesterday was this beetle - there seemed to be quite a few of them around, with more than one smashed on the trail by passers-by. This one was still alive and well, though. I think it may be a flightless tiger beetle (Omus audouini), which I photographed once before in 2009, or perhaps the European ground beetle (Carabus nemoralis) - see comments.

It's always delightful to watch the changing of the seasons, but it would sure be nice to do it in some sunshine....please?