The Passby I've Been Waiting For

Yesterday morning there was no word on the whales first thing in the morning, and after all of them were down south the night before we were worried that they might have all headed out to the open ocean. That's something they usually do from time to time throughout the summer, though this year at least some of them have remained in the inland waters for more than two months straight! Late morning all three pods were picked up out west at Race Rocks, but coming back in towards the San Juan Islands. So, late afternoon I decided to go look for them.

Around 4 PM I could see the boats that were slowly moving across Haro Strait with the whales. By 5 PM I could see some of the whales, and it looked like they were heading right for where I was sitting at Land Bank. As they got closer, a few of them veered to the south, and the rest of them turned to the north about 2 miles offshore. I was thinking about leaving, taking one last look through binoculars, when a whale breached in my field of view much closer to shore. Not time to leave yet!

The whales continued to slowly move north, and I inched my way north along the shoreline with them until I was at Lime Kiln State Park and a few of the L-Pod whales that had gone south came north closer to shore. I thought that they might all continue north at this point, so again I considered leaving, when a large group of whales stopped at the point just north of the lighthouse and started milling close to shore. Hmm....can't leave now!

I have my favorite rock from which I normally watch the whales at Lime Kiln, but last night I actually abandoned it to head over to the cove itself, because the whales were so far in it!

L72 Racer heads deeper into the cove north of the Lime Kiln Lighthouse.

Finally, after much indecision, the whales committed to heading south - towards all of us awaiting them on the shoreline! The first group that came by included a little calf that was being pushed at the surface. This is like the orca version of a piggyback ride. You can see the calf on its side on the surface in the photo below, surrounded by other whales. What you can't see in this particular picture is that the baby was also carrying a piece of kelp in its mouth!

As the whales swam by the kelp just offshore of the rocks where I and many others were sitting, several of them did spyhops. I wonder if they were looking at us, too?

It's always cool to see this many whales, and to see them so close to shore, but there's something extra special about it when the whole thing happens close to sunset.  Of course a lot of the whales are silhouetted, which makes identifying them more difficult, but the lighting is so amazing at that time of day, and the blows were just lighting up in the setting sun.

The first group of whales that came by was a picture of J- and L-Pod animals. Next came most of K-Pod, including K12 Sequim and her new baby K43, who is less than a year old:

 

 

The K13 family group came next....

K25 Scoter just off the kelp at Lime Kiln Point State Park.

There was a gap in the action then, but I could see more blows to the north so I knew more whales were coming. That's what's so amazing about encounters like this when all the pods are together. As soon as one group as passed, you look up and the next group is coming - wave after wave of whales!

It was some more L-Pod whales! The ones closest to shore included L55 Nugget and her three year-old L109 Takoda, who here is just starting to break the surface beside his mom:

I also got my first good look at the newest member of the Southern Resident Community, baby L115 that was born just last week. Here is is next to its probable mother, L47 Marina. Marina has two adult daugthers, but her last four offspring have all died within a few months of being born, the most recent one in 2008. I know I'm not the only one that has her fingers crossed for the well-being of this new little calf!

L47 Marina and the newest Southern Resident Killer Whale, L115.

The last group we saw coming down from the north was made up of a few more J-Pod whales (J8 Spieden, J19 Shachi, and J41 Eclipse) along with the part-time honorary J-Pod members L7 Canuck and L53 Lulu. One of them spyhopped with kelp draped over her pectoral fins:

 

 

 

Most all of the whales had gone south, with the exception of the half of J-Pod made up of the J2s, J14s, and J16s. L7, L53, J8, J19, and J41 usually hang with this group that at last word was continuing north. I was close to leaving one more time, but hung back as this group of five whales stalled out in front of the lighthouse. Surely they would head back north to rejoin "their half" of J-Pod? Yup - that's exactly what they did, and they did it just as the sun was setting!

J8 Spieden, J41 Eclipse, and J19 Shachi head back north in the setting sun.

You couldn't have composed a better photo opportunity than this - with the dark silhouettes of the whales breaking the surface under the orangey glow of the setting sun.

Finally, after sunset at 8:30 PM four and a half hours after I arrived, it was safe to go home and get some dinner as darkness started to settle in. The vocalizations continued on the hydrophones after dark, indicating the whales still continued up and down the westside shoreline into the night.

I called this post "the passby I've been waiting for" because there are a couple of times each summer when everything comes together into an amazing shore-based superpod encounter. It doesn't happen often, and it hadn't happened for me yet this year, so when last night it finally all came together into one of those orca encounters that I dream about during the depths of winter, I was exhilarated, thankful, and happy.

The photos capture the essence of the experience but I also shot a couple of short videos to try and share a little more of what these encounters are like. Here's one clip that includes the two adult males L41 Mega and J27 Blackberry surfacing just offshore. I think you'll understand (if you don't already!) why I spend so much time looking for, waiting for, and watching these whales. It's for moments like these, with wild killer whales just yards away from me.

Porpoising South

This afternoon J and K Pods made their way quickly south past Lime Kiln Point State Park, where I was watching from shore. Most of the whales were porpoising, or high speed swimming, which helped them make quick progress against the flood tide.

It was late afternoon which meant that the whales were backlit, making IDs more difficult. I'm pretty sure this is K26 Lobo and his younger sibling K43:

Porpoising is always difficult to capture in a photograph, because the whales erupt from the surface so quickly and they're swimming faster than normal so it's harder to guess where they might come up next. Today, however, there was so much porpoising there were lots of opportunities to get some cool shots. In some photos, the whale was almost completely obscured by the splash! You can see the whale in this one, but I thought the splash looked cool:

If you time it just right, you can get a photo of the whole head of a whale as she comes up to porpoise:

The dorsal fin on the back of an adult male orca can reach up to six feet in height, but it's hard to tell just how big these whales are unless you have something nearby to compare them to....like maybe some people in a nearby fishing boat:

That's J1 Ruffles approaching some recreational boaters. Look how tall his fin is compared to the people on that boat! A lot of times shore-based viewers get upset when they see boats get too close to the whales, but just to clarify this boat had its engines cut and was drifting in the current. While ideally they would have pulled out of the direct path of the whales, the main concern is to keep boaters from motoring right over the whales or having their engines in gear when they're within 100 yards of the whales. In this case, the boater was actually being pretty good. In fact, shortly before, they were well over 100 yards from the whales when K21 Cappuccino turned and headed straight for them, circled them once, then continued on his way.

While watching the whales approach I saw a rhinoceros auklet and a pigeon guillemot, already in winter plumage, foraging in front of the lighthouse. A couple of Heermann's gulls also flew by:

After dinner a couple of us headed back out to the westside of the island to catch the sunset and see if the whales might head back north. It was a beautiful, calm summer evening with that classic golden sunset lighting. It must have been an awesome night to be out on the water, like these two kayakers were:

We only saw the whales milling far away to the south, but we had some other great wildlife sightings. A family of 10 river otters swam by twice. Lots of salmon were jumping. A harbor seal foraged just off the kelp beds. A small group of harbor porpoise came by.  We heard belted kingfishers and black oystercatchers. And, most surprising of all, we saw a minke whale heading north just offshore! Overall, it was well worth the trip out. Oh, and the sunset? That wasn't too shabby either.

Last night we watched the Perseid meteor shower from a nearby beach. It looks like it will be another clear sky for star-gazing tonight!

The Whale: Luna's Story

The touching and intriguing story of Luna (L98) was told in the beautiful documentary film Saving Luna. In case you haven't heard, it is now being reworked and re-released on the big screen under the title "The Whale".

Luna was a member of L-Pod who somehow got separated from his family and ended up by himself in Nootka Sound off the west side of Vancouver Island. What followed was an amazing story filled with controversy, hope, and interspecies interactions that spanned several years. If you never got a chance to see the original (or even if you did) make sure you check out Luna's incredible story in The Whale when it comes out either this fall or next spring - and make sure to bring some Kleenex.

Wildflowers of the North

I've been down for the count for a few days with an annoying summer cold, so I haven't felt like getting out with the camera for a couple of days. Instead, I've had time to go through some of my other pictures more carefully - in particular, I spent some time with the field guide identifying some of more of the wildflowers that I saw on my trip to Alaska. It's hard to believe that trip already ended six weeks ago!

Here are a few of the species I was able to identify that never made it into any of my other blog posts about the trip....

Showy Jacob's ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum):

Heart-leaved arnica (Arnica cordifolia):


Bog rosemary (Andromeda polifolia):


Yellow marsh saxifrage (Saxifraga hirculus):


Wild geranium (Geranium erianthum):


Pink-flowered wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia):

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!]