September 6: Superpod

I love September. I always say it's my favorite month in the San Juan Islands and the first week has more than reminded me why. I've had so many amazing wildlife encounters already and have been so busy looking for whales and enjoying our late summer weather that I've gotten behind on things to blog about! I've gotta start with the most spectacular, which occurred last Friday when I went out with Western Prince. All three Southern Resident pods returned on September 3rd, and given how scarce they've been this summer and the fact that the season is winding down, I was eager to see them.

We headed north up to Boundary Pass. It was a foggy morning and we passed through some patches of fog on our way up there, but when we neared the whales things cleared up beautifully.

Just like they have been, the pink salmon were jumping like crazy. In this picture you can see why they're nicknamed "humpies" or humpback salmon:

We met up with the whales in the middle of the Pass, and the 80+ of them were so spread out that you could see dorsal fins in any direction you looked. The first whale we came across was L72 Racer, who passed between us and the Odyssey (notice the two other whales in the background):

With the low, wispy clouds covering part of the islands in the background, it was an amazing time and place to be watching whales:

Racer was traveling with K22 Sekiu, and their two nine year-old boys L105 Fluke and K37 Rainshadow were really enjoying playing around together.

From left to right: K22 Sekiu, L72 Racer, K37 Rainshadow

As they traveled on ahead, we turned to view off the north side of the boat where a large group of whales was moving up the shoreline of Saturna Island. It would be pretty special to have a home on the south side of Saturna, where the whales often pass by!

I just missed the breach from a calf, but I caught the amazed expressions on the faces of these two women who were sitting on the Saturna shoreline (click to see a larger view):

Here's another shot that shows what they were treated to - this is L53 Lulu passing by in front of them:

The whales closest to us were  a group of playful youngsters; we had a trio of them on each side of the boat. It's amazingly hard to ID the juveniles when there aren't any adults around to give a clue as to who might be there! The whales grow so fast that their dorsal fin shape may not look like their ID photo, and with all their playing they're getting new nicks and scratches all the time. On one side of the boat we had J46 Star and J44 Moby with one other whale, and on the other side of the boat was L109 Takoda, K44 Ripple, and one other whale.

They were having a grand old time, and so were we, watching them!

Here's a couple shots of J44 Moby:

And L105 Takoda off the other side (I was standing on the bow of the boat so I could easily switch from viewing off one side to the other):

As we rounded East Point with the whales, they turned to the north to head for the Fraser River. There seemed to be a little rearranging of the different groups, and we found ourselves with J27 Blackberry for a bit. I love getting photos of orcas with different bird species - I have shots of whales with common murres, rhino auklets, and black oystercatchers, for instance - but this was the first time I photographed a whale with red-necked phalaropes!

J27 Blackberry with a trio of red-necked phalaropes

As often happens during superpods, a group of adult males was hanging out together. Near Blackberry were K21 Cappuccino and L95 Nigel.

K21 Cappuccino

The whales seemed excited or eager to head towards the Fraser, because all of a sudden whole groups of them started swimming at high speed, or porpoising. Even though we were farther away at this point, it was an impressive sight to see groups of whales launching themselves out of the water like that. The L4s were traveling with the J17s.

From left to right: J17 Princess Angeline, J28 Polaris, J46 Star

L27 Ophelia

We were with the whales for a memorable hour and a half, but the time passed so fast that it was hard to believe it was time to leave already. We left them continuing north up the Strait of Georgia.

From left to right: L27 Ophelia, L53 Lulu, L86 Surprise

As beautiful as it was when we arrived in Boundary Pass, the skies may have been even more stunning on the way home!

I can only hope that the rest of September has more of this kinda day in store!

An Evening on the West Side

We've had some incredible weather over the last 24 hours, with lightning and thunderstorms that are pretty uncharacteristic for this area. This afternoon right when I got off work, however, the sun came out, the rain stopped, and I was drawn to the west side after reports of orcas around earlier in the day. When I got to Lime Kiln, the clouds were dramatic and the water was flat calm. The spotting conditions were great, but there were no whales in sight, though it didn't take long to see harbor porpoise, harbor seal, and even a California sea lion.

I joined several other hopeful whale-watchers along the shoreline, where someone had been busy stacking rocks. This was an impressive tower!

The tide was flooding pretty strongly, but this harbor seal was holding onto his haul out as long as possible:

A couple purse seiners came by, super close to shore as they always seem to do:

It's no wonder they were out there today, because there were salmon all over the place. A couple of times a group of them started jumping like crazy, giving me a chance to get my first-ever salmon "double breach" and almost a quadruple breach!

It was so pretty I was content to just sit and take it all in - this shot was from Land Bank:

I was actually just getting ready to leave when I heard a loud trumpeting sound coming from out in the water. I thought I had heard something similar a few minutes before, but I thought it was probably some noise from the freighter that was passing by. This time, however, I spotted the long, low back of a humpback whale! Surprise! Right after I spotted him this guy got really active, breaching and spyhopping several times as he made his way north.

Humpback whale exhaling while spyhopping

Humpback breach!

The whale seemed to be getting closer to shore as it moved north, so I decided to stop at County Park on my way home to see if I could spot it again. It rounded the point just shortly after I got there, and while it wasn't much closer to shore, I got to point it out to some campers who were thrilled to see it. Here's the whale arching to go down on a deep dive just past Low Island:

It was a beautiful September evening, and an awesome way to end the work day!

An Afternoon on the Water

My mom and a friend are here for a few days and we decided to get out on the water this afternoon with Captain Hobbes of San Juan Island Whale and Wildlife Tours. The Southern Residents have made themselves scarce again, but I was excited to get the chance to check out some of the amazing minke whale activity that's been going on this summer off the south end of San Juan Island.

It was a bit foggy as we made our way south down San Juan Channel, but things began to clear a little as we approached Whale Rocks where the Steller sea lions are already staking out their winter territory. Here's part of a three-way argument over who gets to sit on this rock:

We didn't have to go far out onto the straits - just to Salmon Bank - before we came to an area where three minke whales were feeding. We saw at least two of them, but spent most of our time with this unique individual known as Trotsky II. Most minkes aren't as easily identified as killer whales, but this one's characteristic notch helps him stand out.

Despite being a rather gray day, it was a beautiful day to be on the water. The waters were calm and the scenery was, as always, stunning.

There were salmon jumping everywhere - so much so that I was actually able to catch a few on camera! You have to be even quicker to catch a salmon breach than an orca breach, but luckily they also seemed to like to do jump several times in a row on occasion. While cool to see, these clearly weren't Chinook salmon, which may explain the absence of our black and white friends!

It wasn't just fish and whales out there, either. There wasn't a lot of seabird activity right while we were there, but I did see some more red-necked phalaropes. (I saw my first of the year on last Thursday's whale excursion, making them year bird #168 after I added wandering tattler as #167 after coming across the relatively rare for here sandpiper at American Camp a few days before.)

I couldn't resist taking this photo of the boat I used to work on, the Western Prince, with the dramatic clouds and Olympic Mountains behind it:

Days like today are never bad days to be on the water!

An August Whale Update

No Southern Resident Killer Whales were seen from July 20 to August 7, an unusually lengthy absence during the summer months though not entirely unheard of (in 2000 they were gone for five weeks!) On August 7th a somewhat surprising group of whales returned to the westside of San Juan Island - the L54 matriline along with orphaned boys L88 Wavewalker and L84 Nyssa. Last year, these whales only came into inland waters two or three times over the course of the whole summer, so it was interesting that they should spend some time here by themselves for several days in mid August. What's good to see is that Wavewalker and Nyssa have seemingly found themselves an adopted mom in L54 Ino; often adult males that lose their mothers as these two have don't live much longer unless they find another adult female to latch on to. 

Starting on August 11 all members of J-, K-, and L-Pods made a brief visit to the Salish Sea, the first of several. Each time, they have stayed less than 48 hours, and only on that first visit did they go north to the Fraser River; every other time they've stayed off the south end of San Juan Island before departing out the Strait of Juan de Fuca again. We expect all three pods to be traveling together as we approach fall, but the consensus is there must not be enough fish (Chinook) here to sustain them all for more than about a day.

Looking again at the Albion Chinook test catch data in the lower Fraser River, we see perhaps why this is. There have been a few spikes in Chinook numbers, perhaps luring the Southern Residents back to their traditional foraging grounds here near San Juan Island:

The cumulative numbers are still pretty dismal, however:

People often ask me how I manage to get close photos of the whales so often. The honest answer is: I don't! For many weeks, this is about as close as I got to a killer whale:

Adult male orca off Eagle Point of San Juan Island August 18, 2013

While selfishly I of course want to be seeing the whales every day, the most important thing is that they're finding food wherever they are hanging out. I'm okay with them not being here as long as they're eating! Still, I've been making every attempt to see them when I can, though often it's when you're not trying to hard that things work out. On August 17th I had an appointment to meet someone at Lime Kiln, and was surprised when the L54s and Co. were out off the lighthouse most of the afternoon. They had been around several times, but like the visiting superpods lately, I was beginning not to expect them to go far enough north for shore-based whale watchers like myself to be able to see them. So it was a nice treat.

One big spyhop from L54 Ino was a surprise admist all the foraging these six whales were doing

L88 Wavewalker, a twenty year-old male who is the last living member of his matriline, seems to have found a pal in L108 Coho, a seven year-old male that is one of L54 Ino's offspring. The two were fishing together on this afternoon, and I've heard from others this seems to be a bond in the making.

The superpod visits have been so brief and far from the best shore-based whale watch sites that I had a feeling I was going to have to get out on a boat to see them. The stars aligned for me on the evening of August 22nd, when the news of an incoming superpod aligned with a friend and co-worker being willing and able to take his boat out for a little evening cruise. We headed out from Roche Harbor and met up with the incoming whales in the middle of Haro Strait a little to the northwest of False Bay at about 7:15 PM.

The first group of whales we came across was the L47s. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that seeing this family group of five whales brought a tear to my eye, it was so good to see Southern Residents after weeks and weeks of hoping for this sort of encounter.

From left to right: L91 Muncher, L83 Moonlight, L110 Midnight, L115Mystic

The whales were super spread out over dozens of square miles. In this shot of L91 Muncher surfacing, I didn't even notice until looking at the image on the computer that there's a breaching whale in the background (the little black and white speck on the horizon to her left).

L91 Muncher

L-Pod, in addition to having several "dead end" matrilines with no juvenile or reproductive age females, also has a strongly male-skewed ratio among its young whales. The L47 matriline thus holds an even bigger importance when it comes to the future of the pod. Both juveniles in this family group are males, but there are two reproductive age females. We hope to see Muncher with her first calf soon, and with her first offspring being six years old, L83 Moonlight is could also have another calf at any time.

L83 Moonlight and her six year-old son L110 Midnight. We would expect and hope Moonlight to be having another calf soon; for L-Pod's sake we hope she will have a female!

The L47s were traveling steadily along until Moonlight started feeling a little playful. She did a couple of tail slaps and then a huge breach! I could hardly believe my eyes - such perfect lighting!

Breach by L83 Moonlight

As the L47s continued heading towards the shore of San Juan Island, we moved a little further south where we came across the J22s. We followed along with J32 Rhapsody for a while. She was having a grand old time by herself! While we only saw one breach from Moonlight, Rhapsody must have breached about ten times, with some tail slaps thrown in for good measure.

Breach by J32 Rhapsody

Another breach from J32 Rhapsody

As she continued south, we went a little ways further offshore where we found the K12 matriline. While the sunset lighting on the breaches above was perfect, it was also pretty neat to look in the other direction and have the whales silhouetted against the background of the Olympic Mountains or Vancouver Island.

K37 Rainshadow (left) with his mom K12 Sequim

K33 Tika, who at age 12 has a fin "sprout" - he'll have a towering dorsal fin before too long!

All too soon the sun was setting and it was time to head back. We left the whales heading southeast as we turned back to the north, making a stop along the way to see Lime Kiln Lighthouse from the water side - opposite of where I usually am!

Usually I watch sunsets from the rocks below the lighthouse - this time I was out on the water looking back towards shore

It was a pretty special evening out there, made all the more extraordinary by the news the following morning that the whales were already heading west again back out towards the open ocean, presumably in search of the Chinook they are still not finding here.

Yard Insects

We're slowly but surely settling into our new house. The flora and fauna surrounding us is going to be quite different from the houseboat! On one warm, sunny afternoon I took a break from working to photograph some of the abundant insects in our yard. We didn't get much in the way of butterflies and bees at the marina! Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day:

I look forward to doing another "within 10 feet" project now that we've moved to see how different it is from the houseboat. Needless to say, marine invertebrates will not be topping the list here! But I bet there will be a lot more in the way of plants and hopefully birds. We've already had our first deer visitors.

No specific IDs on the insects just yet because all the field guides are still boxed up! It took us a while to get internet up and running here, but now that I'm back online I'm hoping to return to posting more regularly again.