1-1-18 Orcas Seen and Heard

January 1, 2018
and December 31, 2017

December 31, 2017
-the early morning on the last day of 2017 'acoustical fireworks' from some orcas...and just like fireworks they were very cool and didn't last that long...
...soon the Center for Whale Research was out and located the whales - it was the two moms and babies and one sibling - T75B, T75B2 and new baby, and T75B's sister, T75C and I believe her first known baby...and with them were T49As who have a new baby too! (see prior post about that)
...I went out with Capt. Jim on Peregrine and we were going to head north to that group...when just before we left the dock word came of more orcas coming into Haro Strait from the west...we had to go that way (closer)...
...Eagle Wing tours found them...

...the whales were near the west side of San Juan Island and were heading up island...it was the T18s...
...one of the passengers had mentioned earlier that she had been to Lime Kiln Park hundreds of times and never seen a whale...well, I knew if the whales kept heading the way they were, she would get to see that 'yes, whales really do go by Lime Kiln'...

...they continued up island and passed County Park...

...T19B and his fresh wound...

...

...

...

...on the way back to the harbor...

...so at the end of daylight of the last day of 2017 it was believed that the group with the three babies had continued north, since they were several miles north in the early afternoon and seemed to be continuing that way...and the T18s had been going east and likely north...

January 1, 2018
...in the wee hours (01:27) of the first morning of 2018, I heard not acoustical fireworks, but soft, intermittent calls over the Orca Sound hydrophones and my first thought was, "did the moms and babies come back down?"...but no, I dismissed that...then I thought I should spend the day over at the northeast side of the island, you know, just in case...I dismissed that too...
...shouldn't have...they were somewhere in that vicinity...I got word of some whales and got there asap, only to see a few blows, far in the distance...but I had no idea who...
...later I learn it was the moms and babies group...I headed down island hoping to see them before dark...but to no avail...however, sometimes when you go looking for one thing something else takes your breath away...
...

...a most spectacular moon as it rose up over the horizon with Mt. Baker in view...
...the whales, I didn't get to see, but I knew they were under that moon somewhere...

...living on the west side of the island, it is not often I am in the right place at the right time to see the moon rise...so thank you whales for getting me over there to see that!...
 

4-9-17 The T18s - Transient Killer Whales

Sunday, April 9th
...it certainly has been several days of transient killer whales...and with so many Steller sea lions hauled out at Green Pt. on Spieden Island...124 hauled out and at least another 25 in the water!  

...another day another encounter with Ts...only this time different ones...a family group of four, who are usually seen by themselves...referred to as the T18s,  -  T18, T19 both females.  I don't think their relationship is known but T18 is always with this group.

...T19 has two living offspring - T19B aka Mr. Floppy Fin...it actually is a bit straighter but when he was about 14 it leaned even more...and his brother T19C who is about 6 years younger...

 ...one can tell from a great distance when the T18s are present because of T19B.

...here's another angle of him, coming toward you.

 

1-7-17 Transient Orcas on the West Side

Saturday, January 7th
...lucky to be at the right spot...today when I see a message that says whales on the west side, probably up island...I went outside and stood there lamenting..."every time I go to town...." (I had just gotten back)...
...oops! One surfaced!  
...yay!

...and when these two surfaced I knew right away who...

...it was just about 4pm...the seas were calm...and this time all four were present...

...last time I remember them being around was on December 24th...they had gone up island in the afternoon, I had only seen three (I did not see T18)...they were very vocal over the Orca Sound hydrophones (for Ts) and then about 30 minutes later off the Lime Kiln hydrophones...but they had been traveling up island so hearing them again, faint, over the Lime Kiln HPs they had either crossed a distant spot that LK could pick them up or they had changed direction...

...today I don't know if they vocalized over the Lime Kiln hydrophones before I had seen them but they were completely quiet over the Orca Sound hydrophones and also the Lime Kiln, and nothing heard since then...



...this will show you why he got the nickname Mr. Floppy Fin...one heck of a huge, broad dorsal fin!

And where is J Pod?
...as far as I know there has been no word on J Pod since they were last seen on Dec 28th...

4-9-16 Take Your Pick N,S,E, or W

Thursday through Saturday, April 7-9th
...something strange/unusual or just plain foggy occurred each of these last three days...
...April 7th - out looking for whales on Peregrine with Capt. Jim...a man on an island hailed us over to ask for assistance (he was fine he needed a part for his boat)...problem is we are on a U.S. boat and we were in Canadian waters so we could not moor the boat...Capt. Jim was able to get information to someone in Canada to assist him...never had that happen before...
...we keep going...off to the east in the U. S....Mt. Baker with fog along the water...pretty, but fog was not something we wanted to see...

...we kept searching...and then we hear, "contact"!...it might have been the assist boat that spotted the whales...

...it was two family groups of transients...the T123s with three members, and the T49As with four members...a few images from the day...

...this one unusual and weird...the two males T49A1 and T123A...

...early the next morning whales were spotted coming west in Spieden Channel...we were going out at 9:30 because the wind was supposed to pick up in the afternoon...the entire island had lost power in the night...no coffee, no showers, no nothing...and no fuel docks with power for fueling up boats - yikes!...the trip was certainly starting out as an adventure...by the time it was all worked out - that in itself was rather wild...the 'trail' of those whales was cold...but try we would...
...Dave from the Center for Whale Research had come out and was taking the west side of Haro Strait and we, on Peregrine with Capt. Andy went up on the east side...traveling at a steady and moderate speed was perfect for scanning...Dave called to say he thought he saw some blows but a ship had just passed by leaving a huge wake...a few minutes later both boats saw them at just about the same time - "contact"! 
...it was the same whales as the day before, the T123s and the T49As traveling slow and steady up Boundary Pass...

...then we get to Saturday, the 9th...fog, fog, and more fog...
...one of the Victoria boats 'stumbled upon' some whales while they were heading out in the morning toward San Juan Island...but lost them in the fog...as much as we searched, to no avail...people were hearing them over the Lime Kiln hydrophones (link to the Lime Kiln hydrophones top/left column on this blog), intermittently for close to an hour.
...then by the afternoon the fog had lifted and the whales, the T18s were spotted a couple miles off the south end of San Juan Island...by the time we got down that way those same whales had gone up San Juan Channel and fast!...they were already passed Friday Harbor by the time we got there...
...there are four whales in the T18 group...two were traveling close to the island and the other were spread out a bit and were far off shore...

...they eventually came together but only after what appeared to be, either T18 or T19C having a passing kerfuffle with a Steller sea lion...
...the whales continued on but the sea lion was acting strangely...and came over to the boat...the sea lion swam around the boat, rolling around under but close to the surface...he appeared to be using us for possible protection...seen this type of behavior in the past...soon he moved away and so did we...

...one day transients were on the west side of the islands, the next on the north side of the islands, and the third day on the south and over and up the east side of the islands...surrounded :) 






...and the J17s and the J22s...well they were still in Puget Sound today...and so far, no word, as far as I know, on the rest of J Pod...and the answer as to why continues to loom on the horizon...

 

9-16-14 Would We Ever Get to the Residents Today?

Tuesday, September 16th
...Granny J-2 and Group A Minus were to the north...
...the J16s had been down island last I knew...
...and more whales had come in during the night...
...I barely got a glimpse of them from about a mile south of Lime Kiln Pt. State Park...and back down island they went...
...out on Maya's Westside Charters to see the....wait...what?...Ts? right here? - cool!
...it was the T60's again!  just a few miles outside of Snug Harbor...and they were once again in eating mode...

...and when someone is surfacing backwards they usually are 'carrying' something - really...it makes them more buoyant!

...when she spyhopped she was really giving someone the eye!

...T002B has two tiny nicks...she was the 6th whale present and has been traveling with the T60s for the last few days...maybe all the time...

...when they began to move on so did we...the T18s were coming up island...geesh!...we were never going to see the Residents today!

...they were going the opposite direction as the Residents so we stayed with these whales...the seas to the south were getting rough...

...I know some special people in my life who live in a dome house in Alaska...I think of them every time I see this one...

...the T18s can be very sly when getting a meal...this afternoon they kept splitting into two pairs and then coming back together, which kept us on our toes!
...a quick look at Spieden Island on the way back...it's September and the animals are starting to show themselves more...

...always great to see these animals...

...by the end of the day the Residents who were down island had moved off shore and it sounded like they would soon be gone again...seems like there wasn't a lot of salmon that came in this last time...and that's not good...
...Group A Minus stayed to the north - like near the mouth of the Fraser River...does that tell us something or what?...it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a scientist for that matter to figure it out!
...well tomorrow is another day and perhaps there will be more salmon showing up - fat chance...well...someone got this...wonderful, but I would have rather seen it in the mouth of a killer whale than hanging on a hook!

9-1-14 When Least Expected

Monday, September 1st
...I get a call from Capt. Jim, who got a call from Ivan of the Western Prince...Ts off of South Beach...can I go do some 'whale sitting'...sure...and hope they don't disappear from my view...
...okay, so Ivan 'hands them off' to me...I go to the next turn out...and there's a fella there with a bicycle...he's looking at the pretty view...I'm looking out to sea for the whales...after a few minutes, way in the distance they surface, and I call out to him to see if he saw the whales...he looks at me like I'm nuts...
...so I said just wait...he told me he'd been on the island for a week and hadn't seen a whale yet...so when they surfaced again I handed him my binos and he got so excited to see his first killer whales!...that stuff always makes me smile...
...these whales are called the T18s - T18, T19, T19B, and T19C... and T19B has a huge dorsal fin - that helped with the thrill too!
...no time for pictures here...the whales were moving quickly...off I went to Cattle Pass...

...T19B's fin leans heavily to the left...

...they were very far away, but we both got to see whales today :)

8-9-14 Transient Here and Over There

Saturday, August 9th
...where would they be today?...late yesterday the 19 L pod whales and the K Klik (K-21, K-16, K-35) came back down island...it was 'the perfect' set-up for them to leave and head west...
...why?...because even though there have been some big mixing ups, this time they were more in their respective groupings...and the K Klik often travel with a group other than K pod...
...it was a day full of whales all over the place, except for the Ls and Ks who came back down island late yesterday...
...out on Maya's Westside Charters for the afternoon, we head over to see the T65As and T36As...they have stayed in the area the last few days...

 

 

...later on we saw the T18s...big male in that group I call Mr. Floppy Fin - T19B...
...they were at Gull Island when we saw them and were working all around this small island...some harbor seals looking very worried as they watched T19...

...then T19B surfaces...his fin is so huge!

...T18 was way far away and later joined T19, T19B and T19C as they made their way over to some of the Cactus Islands where they began hunting seals again...

...back at home at 8:20 p.m. I began hearing distant Transient calls over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...that might have been the T65As and the T36As coming down Haro...the timing was about right...

...as for the Residents...since those Ls and the K Klik were not sighted today they probably headed west in the Strait of Juan de Fuca...and the others had spent the night near the mouth of the Fraser River - they know where the salmon are!

...while we were watching the T18s we saw a school of sockeye salmon go by - that's the first of the sockeye I've seen 'finning' as it is called, where you can see their fins breaking the surface of the water...

...at about 11:15 pm I began hearing K pod calls on the Lime Kiln and Orca Sound hydrophones...wow!
...tomorrow should be another interesting day in the world of the whales...