J-Pod Near East Point

Once we get into October, the whales may start to spend more time out of the area, so I feel like every encounter is a special one. I myself hadn't seen them for more than a week, so yesterday when I heard that J-Pod was heading south from the Vancouver area, I decided to hop out on the Western Prince. It turned out to be a very good decision!!

We met up with the whales a few miles north of East Point and they were traveling in tight groups. It was one of those times where you get beautiful surfacings with lots of dorsal fins together. I love photos with so many whales at the surface together, and I don't know what it has been this year but its something I've seen a lot. Here's one of my favorites:

The group closest to us included J1 Ruffles, J2 Granny, and J8 Spieden, the three oldest whales in J-Pod who often travel together. With them was J14 Samish and three of her offspring (adult male J30 Riptide, juvenile J40 Suttles, and calf J45). Another young male, J33 Keet, was also in the same group.

From left to right, J2 Granny, calf J45, mom J14 Samish, and J30 Riptide

Oh yes, and don't forget the honorary J-Pod members, L7 Canuck and her daughter L53 Lulu, who never seem to be too far from Ruffles. L53 Lulu is the female on the left in the photo below. This is also a nice comparison of Riptide and Ruffles. When you see Riptide on his own, he looks huge, but when compared to Ruffles, you can tell he still has a little growing to do:

This next shot I love because it captures how close-knit these families are. The four whales in this photo are so close to each other, surrounding the young calf J45. The beautiful layered hills of the Canadian Gulf Islands are in the background:

For some reason there are certain areas where the whales tend to get really active at the surface. One such place is when they are approaching East Point, and yesterday afternoon was no exception. It was one of the most spectacular displays of surface behaviors I have ever seen, as the whales were doing everything from spyhops and tail slaps to cartwheels and breaches. I wonder what the whales are thinking when all this is going on?! They certainly seemed as excited as their human observers on this occasion. Check out this double tail slap by mom and calf:

There is no other way to describe what L53 Lulu was doing than to say she went ballistic. This is something I've only seen once before, where a whale starts doing tail slaps so fast you can't even see her tail moving, all you see is the huge fan of water she's kicking up. It looks more like the result of a breach, but that whole splash is from her tail!

I always wonder what it's like underwater when the whales are doing all these surface behaviors in such close proximity to each other. Sometimes it looks like a whale is tail slapping right into the face of another whale, or that a breaching whale must practically land on another whale underwater. Right after the crazy tailslapping Lulu breached. Here is the result of one breach that happened right near where Ruffles was surfacing:

The whales were still traveling at this point, but you could see splashes here and there, near and far, as they erupted a the surface in a flurry of activity. Here is a whale doing a half-breach between Ruffles and Granny:

All of a sudden, when we hit the Boiling Reef tide rip, the whales fanned out into small groups of 1-3 animals and started foraging. At one point the captain estimated they were spread from Patos Island to East Point and from Skipjack Island to Monarch Head. It got a little harder to keep track of them all as they milled about and went down for longer dives. For a while we had Ruffles foraging near the boat, lunging in different directions as he presumably pursued a salmon.

J31 Tsuchi and J37 Hyshq'a, two young females from different matrilines, were still frolicking a little bit at the surface and ended up swimming right between us and the Patos Lighthouse:

I had to save the best for last. Here is my prized shot of the day, a beautiful breach by L7 Canuck, who was not to be outdone but her very active daughter:

It was such an awesome encounter with J-Pod, as we got to see a little bit of everything from them traveling in tight groups to "going crazy" with surface behaviors to them being spread out and foraging. When it was time to go there suddenly seemed like there were no whales in sight. We saw Ruffles and Granny backtracking towards Patos Island, and we heard later they were back in the north end of Rosario Strait. I've never seem them turn and go down Rosario after "committing" by making the turn at East Point, but it's unclear exactly where they went during the night before showing up on the westside of the island again this morning. It sure is great to have them around for another October!

NOAA Vessel Regulation Meeting in Friday Harbor

Tonight was the final public meeting to gather comments about NOAA's proposed vessel regulations for operating around the endangered Southern Resident killer whales. For some more background on the issue you can read my previous post on the subject here. It was a full house at Friday Harbor High School where more than 100 people gave 2-minute public comments in the three hour and 45 minute meeting.

I won't attempt to convey everything that was said, but there was strong representation from the commercial whale watching and sport fishing industries, as well as a decent amount of comments from kayakers and residents who live on the westside of San Juan Island in the proposed no-go zone area. There was a lot of support for the alternate proposal put forth by the Pacific Whale Watch Association and others, asking for a slow-go zone rather than a no-go zone. Nearly all of those who supported the no-go zone asked for exemptions for kayakers, and often for recreational fisherman as well. A lot of comments also focused on the difficult issue of enforcement (or lack thereof), and the fact that we need to focus on the salmon issue. I recognize that this meeting and comment period are about vessel effects, but in my opinion it's off-base to talk about the long-term survival of these whales and not put salmon recovery as a top priority. NOAA says they are doing things to address salmon recovery, but so far very little of this reported activity has been in the public eye.

Here are the comments I made during my two minutes:

The Southern Residents were only listed as endangered after they were designated as a distinct population segment, which defines them as separate not only from other cetaceans, but from other members of their own species. It seems inconsistent, then, that so much of the science cited in the proposal focuses on a wide variety of other species from other places. As one example, I’ll point out that a primary citation for the impact of kayaks on killer whales comes from studies of Steller sea lion haul outs in Alaska.

Of the science that does specifically focus on the Southern Residents, the results are tenuous at best. If you talk directly to the researchers you will realize many of the results are more inconclusive than indicated in the proposal. Even if you accept their findings, for instance that whales do more surface active behaviors or vocalize louder in the presence of boats, you have to realize that these changes in behavior are not biologically significant. I understand that ideally we don’t want humans to impact whale behavior in any way, but when talking about their survival, extra tail slaps or louder calls are not going to make or break this population.

No matter how many regulations we put in place, there will continue to be violations. Not just because these regulations would be difficult to enforce, or the fact that there is insufficient enforcement for even our current regulations, but because after spending nine years observing these whales from boats and shore, it is clear to me that they are going to do whatever they want to do whether boats are there or not. They will chase salmon under boats if that’s where they want to feed, they will change direction and pass near a boat if that’s where they want to travel, and they will even seek out boats like freighters (the loudest, largest, and fastest moving vessels the whales routinely encounter) just to surf in their wakes for the fun of it like I saw them do a few weeks ago.

So much time and effort has been focused on the vessel issue. I wish this much energy was being put towards salmon recovery, the true deal breaker for the Southern Resident orcas.

While of course there were a lot of varying opinions in the room, overall I think my comments were pretty well received. On my way back to my seat I received lots of pats on the back, handshakes, high fives, and even (half jokingly) a job offer! Since the vessel proposal was put out, I've spent so much time mulling all this over, and after all that thinking I ended up writing the above statement pretty quickly the night before the meeting. I wasn't sure what, if anything, to say at the meeting and then it be claim clear to me the points I feel most passionate about. It's encouraging and hopeful to know that so many people agree with those sentiments.

It was overall a great community event and it was great to see people from so many different backgrounds take the time to be there and make comments. I sincerely hope NOAA takes all these comments into serious consideration before moving forward with these or any alternative regulations.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm sure there will be a lot more in the media between now and the end of October. Again, I strongly encourage all of you to submit your own written comments to NOAA by October 27th. You can find all the necessary links on my previous blog post.

Check back tomorrow for some photos from today's AMAZING encounter with J-Pod!!

An October Sunday in the San Juans

It was a sunny but blustery day here in the San Juan Islands. I was working on the Western Prince this afternoon and while the whales were out of range up to the north of us, we still had a beautiful afternoon on the water. In addition to harbor seals, Steller sea lions, lots of sea birds, and some exotic terrestrial mammals on Spieden Island, we saw several groups of Dall's porpoise. While a few were bow-riding for a moment, one of the coolest parts was when they were just swimming alongside us and you could see their whole bodies underwater. It was amazing to me that we could see them underwater as long as we could, and during that time they neither dove out of view or broke the surface. Here's pretty much my only porpoise photo of the day that turned out, but it captures the moment well. The head of the porpoise is to the left, and you're seeing the white flank markings and the white-tipped dorsal fin:

We saw one Dall's porpoise that was missing most of its dorsal fin, which is something I've never seen before. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it. It must have had some negative encounter with a killer whale or a boat that led to that injury.

As we passed Lime Kiln Lighthouse there were small groups of Dall's porpoise everywhere, mostly traveling and foraging. It was also a great photo-op of the lighthouse itself, which is situation in Lime Kiln Point State Park. I've spent a lot of time over the years on shore there waiting for and watching whales, but it isn't often I get to photograph it from the water. To the left of the lighthouse the white cliff is all run-off from the historic lime kiln operation that took place there in the late 19th and early 20th century, a piece of history that gives the park its name:

I don't think I've ever written much about the Washington State Ferries that service the San Juan Islands. Being islands, the only way to get here is either by plane or boat. Most people arrive via the Washington State Ferries that serve the four largest islands (San Juan, Orcas, Lopez, and Shaw) and depart from Anacortes, WA. Most of the ferries are large enough to carry well over a hundred vehicles, like this one:

In addition to ferries to and from the mainland, there is also a ferry that goes to Sidney, British Columbia, and another smaller ferry that only goes between the four major San Juan Islands, which is known as the inter-island ferry. Our normal inter-island ferry, the MV Evergreen State, has been out of commission for a few days, so they've temporarily replaced it with the MUCH smaller MV Hiyu.

I always love when the Hiyu serves the San Juan Islands, because, as far as its possible for a boat, it's really cute! Someone recently described it to me as looking like a "wind-up ferry" and it really does next to are much larger ferries. Here it is pulling into the dock, as seen on my walk home from work today:

The Hiyu can actually carry 34 vehicles and 200 passengers, which is still lower than the 87 vehicles and 980 passengers the Evergreen State can carry but probably sufficient for inter-island service in the off-season.

Via a little internet research I learned today that the Hiyu was actually built in Portland, OR in 1967. Most of her career was spent serving the short route between Vashon Island and Tacoma down in Puget Sound, but like most of her other gigs over the years, she was displaced when demand increased and they put a larger vessel on her route. For ten years she was out of use all together and people thought the vessel would be sold, but in 2007 she was called back to action as it became apparent there were no other vessels available when a Washington State Ferry was pulled for maintenance issues.

Late Summer Mushrooms

With the arrival of our drizzly autumn weather, one thing I'm looking forward to is going out for some mushroom walks. Last year was the first year I really started paying attention to mushrooms, which, once you start looking for them, are all over the place during the wet season in amazing variety. In case you missed it, here are my series of posts featuring mushrooms last fall.

There aren't nearly as many mushrooms around in the drier summer season, but they aren't completely absent. Here are some mushrooms I stopped to photograph while out and about doing other things over the last few months.

I need to continue to work on honing my fungus ID skills as so far I've only been able to identify the species in the photo above. This is Lycoperdon perlatum, also known as the gem-studded puffball. This edible species is one of the most common puffballs in the Pacific Northwest. This one is just emerging, but at maturity a pore opens at the top through which the pores disperse.

Check out the diversity among the rest of the species in the photos below:

Did this last one fool you? It fooled me! I thought it was a fungus too, but after some consideration I think it is actually be Indian Pipe, Monotropa uniflora, a parasitic, non-photosynthetic perennial plant! I've read about this plant before and I've always wanted to see it, and then when I did, I didn't even recognize it as a plant. What a cool find though, even though I made the discovery by going through past photos rather than in the field!

Three Signs of Fall

My last post featured what I called the last day of summer, and I wasn't wrong as the signs of fall are now undoubtedly all around us. Here are three such signs that I've noticed in the last couple of days....

All the birds are now shifting to winter plumage, like this glaucous-winged gull that no longer has a stark white head, but rather one streaked with gray:

All year round there are lots of exotic animals on Spieden Island, like these Mouflon sheep:


But only in the fall will you see them mating!


Down in Cattle Pass there are now 20+ male Steller sea lions consistently hanging out at Whale Rocks, where they will reside until next May. Here are a couple of them today - note the fog and the choppy water that just added to the autumn ambiance of this first day of October:

(Almost) End of Season Crew Trip

While we'll still be running whale and wildlife viewing trips for another month, yesterday felt like the last day of summer in a lot of ways. We've switched to our fall schedule now and as of today the weather feels cooler, windier, damper, and overall just a lot more like autumn. Yesterday afternoon, however, was a full boat trip aboard the Western Prince and we enjoyed K and L-Pod whales in the warm sunshine and calm waters off the southwest side of San Juan Island.

When we got on scene the whales were very spread out, and going on very long dives as they foraged making viewing difficult. By the time we left, however, they were grouping up and getting social. We had a beautiful close pass by L86 Surprise and her two offspring L106 Pooka and new calf L112. Then we watched another group of four whales (I couldn't ID them because they were backlit) roll around at the surface, including a young juvenile who spyhopped with a fish in its mouth!

As soon a we got back to the harbor it was time for our annual end-of-season crew trip. What, you may ask, do a bunch of whale enthusiasts do to celebrate the winding down of the whale-watching season? Go whale-watching, of course! We all hopped aboard our zodiac-style boat the Western Explorer and cruised around San Juan Island enjoying the zippy boat ride and several groups of Dall's porpoise before catching up with the whales again. Below are some photo highlights from the beautiful sunset encounter with part of K-Pod and part of L-Pod.

Two whales surfacing just off of South Beach with Mt. Baker in the background

The whales have been splitting up into all sorts of different groups all season long, but I think I finally pieced together who was out there yesterday. K-Pod split up, with part of them going north and part of them staying south where I saw them. I think we had the majority of K-Pod (minus the K11s), but I only saw for sure K21 Cappuccino, K26 Lobo, and K16 Opus.

A whale silhouetted by the late afternoon light with the Olympic Mountains in the background

As far as L-Pod whales go, we had at least the following L-Pod family groups: the L55s (8 whales), the L72s (3 whales), and the L26s (3 whales). This was awesome because these are probably among the rarest family groups I encounter since they spend so much of their time out in the open ocean, so its always exciting to see them. Below is L95 Nigel, a 13 year-old male that looks like he's just starting to "sprout", meaning his fin is growing up to be the tall, six-foot dorsal of the full adult male:

L95 Nigel

After finding a nice group of whales, we just cut our engine and soaked in the sight of the whales slowly moving offshore. The lighting was spectacular: everything looked golden, except for the waters that looked almost blue-purple.

K26 Lobo

All too soon, it was time to head in before it got dark. On the way home we were treated to a view of the sun setting beyond the Cattle Point Lighthouse:

Oh, Deer

I didn't feel like I saw all that many deer this spring, but this fall has been a completely different story. I've been seeing deer everywhere! Here are some photos from three different deer encounters last week.

While walking at British Camp, a mom and her two twin fawns from this year were grazing and nibbling at the crab apples that had fallen on the ground under the trees:

Near False Bay, these three deer were on the alert when a fox came walking across the field. I like how they are different colors - one dark, one medium, and one light:

This doe paid me no mind as I sat down on a log to watch her come down a hillside towards me. When she got near the bottom of the slope she tried to reach out to grab some leaves off the branches of a tree that was growing at the bottom of the hill:

When she still wasn't able to reach, she came to the bottom of the hill and took a new approach - standing up on her back two legs! She couldn't care less about me as I watched her do this repeatedly to reach the branches:

Her reward? A mouth full of green leaves!