5-10-23 Humpback-Transients-Eagle

Thanks to the 'heads-up' of others, it was quite a day!

Transient orcas were coming south in San Juan Channel. There are many places they can change their direction of travel. Luckily they continued down the Channel. A few images from the 900 I took. There were 19 Transient orcas, from very young to seniors. Here are a couple highlights from the passby.

below - that white is the underside of someone's right tail fluke.

As fun a day as it was...something was missing.

Though it's interesting to see so many Transients this spring, it is concerning to me that the Southern Resident orcas are not seen much.  The SRKWs should be here at this time of year, feasting on salmon that are (sould be) returning to the Fraser River, Canada. But the absence of J,K and L pods tells us a lot.

I'd rather they go where they can find enough salmon. We've seen in years past how they have come into these waters and travel, travel, travel without spending much time in any one place and then go back out to sea - an indicator of where the salmon are or are not.

So just maybe the Transients will help reduce the seal and sea lion population and they might be doing 'their part' to help restore salmon. Round about way, but every living salmon that survives is of upmost importance not only for the SRKWs, but for the other 136 species that rely on salmon.  Look it up 137 Species that Rely on Salmon.

 

Early May 2023-Transient orcas

All the way through May 8, Transient orcas have been in many places among the San Juan Islands, in Puget Sound, and north in Canadian waters. I saw them a couple times, missed them a couple times too.

Here are images of two groups...actually one group was by themselves one day and then they were with the rest of their family the other day.

This family hasn't been seen traveling together, at least when seen in the U.S. waters in many years. So the second day was pretty special, seeing them all together.

While waiting, a vulture did a fly-over. 

First day of the T65As. Some had grown alot since the last time I saw them and little did I know it would come in handy the following day. Not only had T65A-3 grown alot, so had T65B-1, and they looked very similar. T65A2, adult male, has a notch near the top of his dorsal fin, which sets him apart from the other males in this family, at least for now.

A couple days later T63, T65, T65Bs and the T65As were all together.

and...one of those days a fox showed up at Cattle Pass!

He too scanned but his scanning was looking for a meal in the grass. Not sure how many people were looking, if any, at the fox because most were looking at the water...most of the time!

5-11-2022 Transient Orcas Passing the Lighthouse

 

These next two are zoomed in and not very sharp in focus, but enough to be able to pick up the small notches and the 'wonky' dorsal fin, each on a different orca.

In order to learn the identifications of the whales one needs to find what pieces of information they can gather from their photos and then later go and look for that/those specific whales in the DFO catalog (for Transients/aka Biggs orcas.  When doing so with SRKWs the Center for Whale Research holds the official ID book on J, K & L pods. 

So, you got to see the whales and then you get to go and spend time (sometimes hours) figuring out who was actually present - it's just like having that encounter all over again!

4-18-18 Busy With Whales

Wednesday, April 18th
...to wrap up the last encounter - 4-15-18 (previous post)...

...and into the next encounter with some of the same animals, today...April 18th...riding along on the Western Prince we once again encounter whales, the T123s and the T36As...there had been no word of the T65As or the T49As...
...Bonaparte's Gulls were thick in Boundary Pass, common for this time of year and to have the whales in the 'thick' of them too!

...they were heading toward East Pt. and the Strait of Georgia...

...someone located the T49As a few miles south of these whales and since we were heading back that way...

...another boat spotted a gray whale in the same direction as we were heading back to Friday Harbor...a quick look and pics to send to the gray whale researchers...

...I don't know much about gray whales, so that spot that has the arrow toward a possible wound, might not be a wound at all...
...what a day...now I had some good images of all of those juveniles from three of the four family groups from 4-15...lots of sorting to do to figure out all those youngsters!
 

3-30-18 The T2Cs Are Here Again

Friday, March 30th
...sunshine again, calm seas, and room on the Western Prince...a good day to get out on the water...I didn't know of any whale sightings, but after more rain and cold (to me) weather, well, with the nice day...

...it wasn't long before I learned that there were actually whales out there and they were near-by...and it was the T2Cs - again!...and they were in San Juan Channel - again!  WOW!

Recently I've written several blog posts about them...so enjoy images from today.

 ...this is at Whale Rocks, Cattle Pass