Tuesday, May 21, 2013

5-21-13 Magic Land

Tuesday, May 21st
but first...after seeing a harbor seal eat an octopus on the evening of the 19th, something occurred the next morning that I haven't seen before...both these events caused me to wonder...
...on that next morning along the west side looking for whales...I saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree...not an uncommon sight...the eagle remained there for over 45 minutes...
...when a Steller sea lion surfaced not far from shore that bald eagle took off right for the Steller...another eagle appeared and they were both after the Steller...if the Steller had a fish I wouldn't have thought much about it, but the Steller was just taking a breath - that's all!
...all I could think of is:  "they're that hungry?"...which also means:  "is the salmon that scarce?"
I don't know the answer, I just thought that both the harbor seal/octopus and the eagle/Steller sea lion incidents to be very unusual.

...on to today...
...a small group of marine mammal eating orca (transients) came past the lighthouse this morning...very cool...not a common thing for Ts...I didn't get much of a look at them when they went by, but Dave from the Center for Whale Research let me know it was the T124As...this is a group with a new baby...
...luckily these whales didn't keep going south for too long...they flipped and came back up Haro Strait a few miles from shore...leaving the harbor on Maya's Westside Charters  in the early afternoon was great timing...the whales just very close by...
...T124A1 was not traveling with them...the last time I saw T124A1 was in March traveling with several others...
...the newest member of this group has quite an alpha-numeric:  T124A2A
...this marker up in the Canadian Gulf Islands...
...two of the members of this group...
...they continued to move north slowly, not changing direction too often...
...on our way back to the harbor Capt. Jim just had to stop for these two...
makes you feel like you live in 'magic land'
...these two tall ships - the Victoria Grace and the Pacific Swift...
...I mean I already live in 'magic land' being graced by killer whales, bald eagles and more...and these two magnificent ships just topped it all off for me today!
...the only thing that I would want more of is to see salmon, lots and lots of salmon for the whales.
...I guess J pod went looking for them... 

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