Lots More L-Pod

On Thursday, June 6th I had a full day at work and wasn't expecting to see any whales. However, my friend Melisa (check out her new blog) alerted me to the fact that the whales were still way to the north towards the middle of the afternoon, so I schemed to have a picnic dinner with Keith at Lime Kiln and again our timing was perfect. Right when we arrived at the lighthouse we could see splashes way to the north, so we settled in on "my rock" and ate a quick dinner as the whales approached.

Our view as we ate dinner

It turned out to be most of L-Pod heading towards us (the L22s were off the south end and the L11s had apparently left). They mostly seemed interested in traveling but the L55s stopped to forage and one of them lunged at the surface, sending this salmon flying into the air!

It was interesting to note that L53 Lulu was still traveling with L-Pod, and has in fact been hanging out with some of the other L-Pod females that have never been seen with calves. This evening she was with L91 Muncher:

L91 Muncher

There was a pair of oystercatchers flying around, and occasionally I had to take my focus off the whales and put it onto these birds when they came close:

"Wouldn't it be cool to get a picture of a whale and an oystercatcher?" I mused, thinking of some other photos I've gotten with whales and birds together. Ask and ye shall receive!

The three Os: orca, oystercatcher, and Olympic Mountains

After the whales passed by, some of them way out in the strait looking like they might aiming to head back out west, we settled in to watch the sunset. More than an hour after seeing our last whale, we were surprised with a loud KAWOOF!! as a whale surfaced just off the rocks in front of us! It turned out to be L22 Spirit traveling with her sons L79 Skana and L89 Solstice. They had been off the south end of the island all day and apparently weren't interested in meeting up with the rest of L-Pod; their target was J-Pod, who I later learned as heading south waaaay behind L-Pod. It was almost too dark for pictures, but not quite:

Out of no where: L79 Skana

I love this shot of the sunset and the lighthouse AND a whale - do you see him? Click here to see a larger version (prints also available - someone has already pointed out this would make a stunning canvas!)

On Friday afternoon (June 7th) I again didn't expect to see any whales, but with the way things have been going, why not give it a shot? I headed to the west side again after work and was surprised when I got out of my car at Land Bank to see a big splash not far to the north. There were no boats, and no other people in sight at Land Bank, but there were whales! It turned out to be the same group of L-Pod whales heading south against a strong flood tide. Most of them were pretty far from shore, but I got this photo of the same three whales that surprised us the previosus evening: L22 Spirit, L79 Skana, and L89 Solstice:

Next up: more whales, of course! Some patience pays off, resulting in a super close J-Pod encounter - probably the closest I've been to a whale in a couple years!

L-Pod Joins the Party

The amazing whale sightings have continued and I've been lucky to see them almost every day this week. Already I've had more incredible shore-based whale encounters this season than I did all of last year combined, and it's still only early June and the whales came back late! Needless to say, it's shaping up to be quite the year and I can only hope it will continue. It may be a while, however, until Wednesday, June 5th's afternoon's encounter is topped. Word was whales were a few miles south of the south end of San Juan Island and that a large group of L-Pod whales had showed up to join J-Pod. In addition to the L12 sub-group (L22s, L11s, L25), present were the L26s (sadly sans L26), L53, L72s, L4s, and L47s. For those keeping track, the only whales absent from L-Pod were the L54s, L2s, and L84. Not knowing if they were ever going to head north, I settled in at Land Bank's Westside Preserve to wait. Two hours after arriving my waiting paid off!

Not surprisingly, J2 Granny and J8 Spieden were in the lead. Not far behind them were J19 Shachi, J41 Eclipse, and L87 Onyx. The latter three came pretty close to shore, and were weaving back and forth right in front of Land Bank, seemingly indecisive about whether to continue north or head back south.

L87 Onyx

J41 Eclipse lifts her tail out of the water with kelp draped over it

As they debated which way to go, or more likely simply stopped to play in the kelp, L41 Mega and L25 Ocean Sun joined them:

L41 Mega and L25 Ocean Sun break the surface - prints available here

L41 Mega and L25 Ocean Sun surface together - prints available here

Mega's tall dorsal fin is always so impressive at close range! He's the oldest male among the Southern Residents and likely also the most successful breeding male. It's always interesting to see how the whales mix and match when pods get together, and Mega seemed rather interested in eight year-old J41 Eclipse. One of my very favorite whales, I told him she's a little too young yet!! Perhaps he was interested in J19 Shachi, who hasn't been seen with a newborn since Eclipse was born in 2005.

When going to the west side to watch whales it's always a bit of a debate whether to watch from Land Bank or Lime Kiln. Us orca-holics are always anxious to pick the best spot where the whales will be closest, but of course one never knows for sure where that will be. On June 5, Land Bank was undoubtedly the place to be, as the whales kept going back and forth and back and forth right in front of us. I can only imagine what it was like to sit at Lime Kiln (though I really know all to well) and watch the blows so close to shore off Land Bank heading towards you, only to see them turn around time and time again!

L87 Onyx in the kelp

I realized today that my Zenfolio site offers 5 x 15 prints, and that this size is actually really appropriate for killer whale shots, so I've tried cropping a few of them that way from this encounter. Check out the gallery of them and order prints here, starting at just $15. Click on the photos to see a larger version that does them more justice.

At this point, Granny looped back and started tail slapping madly. Was she tired of waiting and calling all the whales to start coming north? Perhaps, or maybe she was just getting the party started, because we saw a lot of surface behavior after that!

L92 Crewser tail slapping

A whale with an interesting mark on her chin spyhops with kelp draped over her pec fins

L53 Lulu breaches

In recent years L53 Lulu, who no longer has any living immediate relatives, has spent the winter traveling with L-Pod and the summer traveling with J-Pod. So far, she's stuck with L-Pod here in inland waters even when the two pods have split. On this day, she was traveling with L95 Nigel and L90 Ballena. She's always been a whale known for breaching and this day was no exception as she launched herself out of the water three times in quick succession.

While the party raged on, some J-Pod whales grouped up into what almost looked like a resting line. It's so cool to see this many dorsal fins on the surface all at once as the whales breathe in synchrony! The J14s are in this group along with either the J22s or J11s I think:

This whale was doing an upside down tail slap when it got pushed by another whale beside it. There was a lot of rough-housing going on!

J17 Princess Angeline and her four year-old son J44 Moby were traveling with L82 Kasatka and her three year-old son L116 Finn. The J17, with all their youngsters, have been hanging out with lots of different L-Pod youngsters, maybe giving their kid a chance to play with some cousins they haven't seen all winter!

At this point the whole gang had arrived and the whales decided to mosey on north for real. When there are sixty whales out there all over the place it's hard to know where to look! At one end of Land Bank, J27 Blackberry was in hot pursuit of L53 Lulu. I saw these two going at it last year, too, so maybe the young lovers were being reunited? I wasn't photographing that, however, because I was too busy watching whales right in front of me in the kelp:

J27 Blackberry did make his way past me a short while later:

Next up, it wouldn't be long until another memorable encounter with L-Pod....

Local Waters: Teeming With Life

It's been amazing to look into the water from the docks over the last few days. The marine life has been abundant everywhere you look. Most striking has probably been the huge schools of fish:

One evening the fish were this dense in all directions. There's only a gap at the bottom of the image because that's where the shoreline is. There must have been millions of them:

During lunch on Monday I was watching thousands of bigger fish feeding on the millions of little fish. There was a current that looked like a superhighway of the larger fish all traveling in the same direction, but a few would peel off and dart into the schools of small fish. I was bummed I didn't have my underwater video camera charged to capture a better view of it than this - the big fish in the middle on the left:

I did charge the camera, and will post some underwater video of the smaller fish that were around later in the day in a future post.  In the meantime, the still camera had to suffice to try and capture the schools of fish everywhere:

I captured a few of the fish in my net to take a few close ups. Anyone know what kind they might be?

It's not just fish out there, however. If you look closer you can find amazing things like this - crab larvae!

Last night another stunning scene unfolded. We heard it before we saw it. From off the docks all the way over to Brown Island and across a distance of several hundred yards, fish were jumping right before sunset. It sounded and looked like it was raining giant raindrops. It's hard to capture the full effect in a photo or even a video, but each of these little white splashes was a jumping fish to give you an idea of how many there were (click to see a larger view):

There were lots of gulls hanging around but it didn't look like they were able to catch any fish - they were just sitting there pondering what to do since fish were everywhere! It was hard to tell, but these looked similar to the larger fish that were preying on the small fish earlier in the day. Since the camera was out, I took a picture of the sunset from our dock too:

Back on land, this last weekend I added another year bird as cedar waxwings (161) have arrived on the island. Today I was able to get a picture of one at English Camp:

But as you can tell, my attention has been more focused on the water lately. There are whales out there too! Here's a shot of the J17 matriline on the west side of the island today:

A further testament to the thriving life in our local waters right now is that soon after the whales passed by, there was again jumping fish over a huge area of water. They filled the whole bay to the south of the Land Bank property. Let's hope this abundance continues all summer up and down the food chain. It's incredible to see!

Another Spectacular Sunday: Eagles, J-Pod, and the L12s

Sundays have proven to be great days for seeing whales so far this season! Yesterday the L12 sub-group of L-Pod magically showed up with J-Pod, and word first thing this morning was that all 40 or so whales were heading south in Haro Strait. After breakfast we headed out to Land Bank's Westside Preserve, and we weren't there long before we heard that the whales were swimming back north in our direction. They were moving slowly against the ebb tide, still out of view, but after finding a place to sit and wait I didn't even get a chance to pull out my book when a bald eagle caught my eye. There must have been a carcass of some sort a little ways down the shoreline, because there were no fewer than five eagles flying around, plus a pair of turkey vultures and a couple of ravens. Not the greatest picture, but here's one bird of all three species in the same shot (raven is in the bottom left):

This adult bald eagle looked up at an immature eagle as it came in for a landing:

I didn't see the animals actively feeding, so I'm not sure what caught their attention. They would sit in the same area for a while and then take off and fly around before circling back. The only bird I saw with food in its beak was a raven - maybe the meal was inaccessible to the larger birds of prey? With all the flying around, we got three incredibly close flybys from three different eagles. It's not often you get so close to a wild bald eagle - pretty freakin' cool!

By the time the bird activity started to settle down, the first blows were coming into view past the point to the south. A large group of J-Pod whales was in the lead, and they weren't in any hurry. There was a lot of milling going on, with whales looping back and going inshore and offshore as they eventually made their way north. The J16s and J22s were in this group, and by the number of whales I'm guessing the J14s were there as well, though probably a bit further offshore where I couldn't ID them.  J8's group was also there, and J19 Shachi gave us the closest pass when she looped back south:

There was a bit of a gap then as this group of whales continued north, but I knew there were still more to come. A lot of the crowd that had gathered to watch the whales dispersed, despite being told there were more whales on the way. Often the best moments of a whale passby happen towards the end, after a lot of people have left - don't ask me why, but it's very often the case! Today was no exception.

I was thrilled to see the L12s come next - my first sighting of this group this year. L25 Ocean Sun thrilled us with a close pass:

Next was a trio of males, and they seemed interested in dawdling, too, and playing in the kelp. Here's L89 Solstice with kelp on his dorsal fin:

L41 Mega, the oldest living male and largest whale in the entire Southern Resident population, was also present. He's also so impressive to see at any distance, but up close especially.

L41 Mega begins to surface with a piece of kelp wrapped around his six-foot-tall dorsal fin

After the males meandered north, a group of eight whales quickly approached, surfacing all together in a line. I quickly realized it was the three adult females of the J17 matriline with their young offspring, but who were the other two whales? My photos revealed it was L94 Calypso and L113 Cousteau. I love it when whales from different family groups are mixed together, because I think it gives a glimpse into the social lives of these intriguing animals. The young whales in the J17 group are four year-old J44 Moby, four year-old J46 Star, and three year-old J47 Notch. L113 Cousteau was born in the same time span and is four years old as well. She was probably getting a chance to hang out with some members of her own age group, which she doesn't have any of in her sub-pod, or maybe mom was getting a chance to compare notes with other young mothers. It's fun to speculate!

From left to right: J44 Moby, J17 Princess Angeline, J28 Polaris. I believe the whale about to surface is J35 Talequah.

The six whales of the J17 matriline travel with L94 Calypso (larger fin at back, center) and L113 Cousteau (furthest back, just to the left of Calypso)

Two more males brought up the rear of the pack, also swimming quickly unlike all the earlier whales. One of them was J27 Blackberry, who like the other males before him had a piece of kelp around his dorsal fin despite swimming at near-porpoising speeds:

It's awesome to have the whales hanging around for days at a time - hopefully that means they're finding lots to eat here! Their pattern the last few days has been to head north to the Fraser River, then come down Boundary Pass and the west side of San Juan Island, turn around a little bit later, and head back north again. Not much hanging around on the west side as they sometimes do right after coming south, but when they are there, it's been pretty spectacular!