Epic Journey to Race Rocks

Today our awesome and very generous captain chartered a Canadian zodiac to take his crew out on a wildlife-viewing adventure from a different (and much speedier) platform. This trip had a bit of everything - sunshine and blue skies to socked in fog, choppy waters that tossed us around to glassy flat-calm water. We traveled all the way out west past Race Rocks in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and while traveling about a hundred nautical miles over six and a half hours we saw tons of birds and marine mammals. The best way to capture it all is via a species list, with some photos and notes to go along with it.

Cetaceans (don't ask me how the numbers worked out like this)
3 transient orcas - T41, T41A, and male T44
3 minke whales
3 Dall's porpose
3 harbor porpoise

Transient male T44, surfacing with a red piece of harbor seal meat in his mouth. It's hard to see in the low-res version, so I included a close-up.

Transient female T41

Minke whale chillin' with a red-necked grebe

Pinnipeds
Several hundred Steller sea lions - several hundred at Race Rocks, 5-10 "harassing" the three transients, and about 20 more at Whale Rocks on the way back home
Several dozen harbor seals
A few California sea lions

Steller sea lions through the fog at Race Rocks (with one California sea lion in the back)

Two lazy Steller sea lions on Whale Rocks, with some Heermann's gulls and double-crested cormorants

Birds
Several hundred common murres
Several hundred glaucous-winged gulls
Several hundred Heermann's gulls
Several dozen rhinoceros auklets
Several dozen pelagic cormorants

Several dozen double-crested cormorants

Several dozen turkey vultures (see photo)

5-10 pigeon guillemots
5-10 surf scoters
5-10 Bonaparte's gulls
3 Pacific loons
1 bald eagle
1 red-necked grebe (I didn't even know we saw this until looking at my photos, and I noticed it with the minke whale in the above photo!)
1 shearwater (!!! Species yet to be determined, but something I've never seen here)

Probably the coolest thing we saw today was the interaction between some Steller sea lions and the three transients. I've heard about hordes of Steller sea lions chasing transients away, but this is the first time I've witnessed anything like it. Transients are the true top predators in the ocean, but really only stand a chance against a large, aggresive Steller when they get it alone and offshore, and even then it takes a group of them to do it and they might leave the encounter with some sea-lion-inflicted battle scars. Right after we saw the transients make a harbor seal kill, they were continuing along to the west when we spotted about 5-10 Steller seal lions in a nearby kelp bed. The sea lions were on the surface "chasing" after the transients maybe 150 yards behind them, when the whales made a 180 degree turn and seemingly called their bluff by swimming right back at them. The whales disappeared on a long dive while the Steller's nervously poked their heads above the water to scan for dorsal fins. The whales circled around the sea lions once, and must have passed within yards of them before continuing on their way. It was exhilirating to see two of the top predators in the ocean interacting like that in the wild.

What's your eternal moment?

"The air becomes still. We become quiet. Together, we witness a sight that few people ever see: we are surrounded by killer whales...Conventional teachings suggest that eternity is something that starts after death, and then goes on - well, forever. But I know that it is this moment that is eternal. One wave moves in a certain manner while that particular killer whale rises above the water and catches one ray of light against the flash of its singular fin, and I stand here on this particular boat, late in the afternoon of this certain day, with these people who have traveled distances near and far to stand here and be captured with me in this moment, which is gone before I blink and which will continue always to exist." ~Ernestine Hayes, in Blonde Indian

This quote was in a magazine I read today, and when I read it aloud I was told it sounds like something I could have written. It certainly rings true for me. I think I'll have to check out the novel that it comes from.

T14 in Active Pass

Today we headed way up north into the Canadian Gulf Islands, up Swanson Channel and through a narrow area called Active Pass where we caught up with the lone male transient T14. T14, also nicknamed Pender, is a famous transient because he was captured in 1976 along with 5 other transient orcas. Little was understood about the local pods of orcas in the 1960s and 1970s, and both residents and transients were captured to be put on display in marine parks. By 1976, members of the public were beginning to protest the live captures, however, and all six transients were eventually released. T14 and his mom, T13, were held a little longer than the others for research purposes and were eventually fitted with radio tags before release.

You'll understand why I was so thrilled to hear about the small, cutting-edge tracking tags Brad Hanson is using this year when you hear what happened to Pender. The tags that were fitted to him and his mom weighed 1.5 kg and were attached to the fin with five bolts that were surgically drilled through the fin while the whales were in a net pen - quite a contrast to the small dart Brad and other researchers can attach to the whale as it surfaces! After five months of tracking, the two whales disppeared, and were not seen again for three years, at which point the tags were gone, but a build-up of scar tissue remained. While T13 has since died, T14 still bears distinctive scars from his tag 32 years later. You can see them in the photo below - the two notches on the bottom of the leading edge of his dorsal fin.


Pender was just a young sprouter male when the tagging incident occurred, but he has since become one of the most well-known local transients. Today was the first time I've ever gotten to see him, though. It's actually the first time I've ever seen any of the transient lone bulls, that either disperse from their mother or travel on their own after her death. They lone bulls will occassionally associate with other males (T14 was with another lone bull, T31, yesterday) or other transient pods for breeding purposes, but Pender is most often seen alone.

Some whale-watch captains theorize that Pender routinely circumnavigates Vancouver Island, because he's seen here every three weeks or so, always coming east from the Strait of Juan de Fuca and heading north up the Strait of Georgia. That's exactly what he was doing on this visit - coming in from Victoria yesterday and when we left him today he was heading north up the Strait of Georgia.

Lazy Day, Lazy Whales

Today I got a call that J-Pod was heading south towards Lime Kiln Lighthouse. I rushed out there, because sometimes they zoom down from the north end of San Juan Island in 20 minutes. Other times though, like today, they move very slowly against a strong flood tide and it takes them more like two hours. When the whales finally came into sight, they were very far offshore, and I spent another two hours watching them slowly make progress southward. While it wasn't an action-filled day whale-wise, it was nice to just relax on the rocks in the sunshine, and sit there with my camera and binoculars enjoying both the whales in the distance and the other wildlife that was around.

Several small flocks of harlequin ducks flew by, there were lots of little harbor seal weaner pups (born in July of this year, but now off on their own) chasing each other around, and one orca even came in for a "close" pass - although close today meant within half a mile!

Overall, I certainly can't complain - it was another beautiful day in the San Juan Islands!

K-Pod Calls from Yesterday

While listening live as I recorded yesterday, I thought the whales were pretty vocal, but it turns out it was pretty hard to find a nice, short sample that has a lot of vocalizations! I found a decent one though: here's a clip from yesterday when J and K Pods went north past the lighthouse. This seems to be all K-Pod vocals; while both Js and Ks make these calls, K-Pod has a distinct high-pitched version that sounds like kittens mewing.

Autumn Whales

Today I ventured out to see the incoming superpod in the wind and rain. It was somehow appropriate that my first time seeing the residents after the fall equinox was a cool blustery day. As I walked down to the lighthouse, orange leaves drifted down from the trees. I took my place on "my rock", and my jeans got wet from the damp rocks. The water was a steely gray, and I had my hood up against the drizzle. The whales were pretty far offshore, but I was still smiling: it's almost October, and I'm watching killer whales!

Blackberry (J27) and his younger brother Mako (J39) - Mako did a couple of enthusiastic upsidedown breaches as the J11 family traveled up Haro Strait

The whales were mostly about a half mile offshore, plus it was drizzly, so I didn't get to take many photos, but they were vocalizing and I made my first Mp3 player recording in about a month. I'll go through tomorrow and pick out a nice sample to post.

In between groups of whales passing by, a great blue heron also flew over!

At times the sun would break between the clouds, as in the above picture looking across at the Olympic Mountains. It was only a brief parting, but the mountains looked like they were momentarily floating about the strait. By the time I headed back to town, however, the rain had started in again and the winds were picking up and there was no hint of sunshine anymore.

Surprise Transients

I was over at my friend Jeanne's house yesterday afternoon, and while we had heard there were transients inbound from Race Rocks in the morning, we pretty much thought there would be no chance to see whales from shore that afternoon. As we were sitting there talking, however, Jeanne kept looking out the window. All of a sudden in the middle of our conversation she yelled "We have whales!!"

"No way. You've got to be kidding me. No way," I kept saying in response. We both jumped up and looked out the window, and then over the choppy waters a huge spout shot up into the air right off the point at the south end of Andrew's Bay (just north of Lime Kiln). The plume went so high and stayed in the air so long despite the windy conditions that at first we almost thought it might be a humpback whale! But soon we saw two, then three, blows and through binoculars could see the distinct dorsal fins of orcas. From outside Jeanne's house, we watched as three transients, including the tagged male T19B, made their way through Andrew's Bay and up north. Not only was it exciting because it was unexpected, but because of the rough water conditions we got to see whales from land while most of the whale-watch boats stayed in more protected waters and didn't go out searching for the transients.

You can follow the very interesting progress of T19B, female transient T30, and now also the minke whale we saw in San Juan Channel on the Cascadia Research tagging site, where every morning they post updated maps of the whales' movements. While I'm as excited as anyone else to check back and see where the whales are moving (for instance, the T30s have been traveling along the continental shelf - is this a pattern more widespread among transients? Also, where do the minkes go when they leave the inland waters - no one knows!), there are many potential consequences of giving this information out to the public on a regular basis. It allows the commercial whale-watch companies to know where to look for the whales before anyone is actually out on the water first thing in the morning. There are many issues to ponder surrounding this, and I will probably blog more about it later, but for now I'm fascinated to follow the progress of these tagged whales.