Transient Orcas On 10/24/14 And Humpbacks On 10/26/14

On October 24th, I headed back home to San Juan Island for the weekend to attend an orca recovery workshop that was hosted by The Whale Museum. This workshop, called CALF (Community Action Looking Forward), was very informative and it was great to see so many caring people concerned for the survival of the Southern Resident orcas. To read a great summary of the workshop, check out my friend Monika Wieland's blog here.

Once aboard a Washington State Ferry bound for the island, I became glued to the window. I yearned to see a cetacean of any kind. Evergreen State College is great but I do miss cetaceans when I am there! Almost immediately, a small group of harbor porpoise appeared. They were porpoising the oposite way as us and were soon far off in the distance. As we were approached the North end of Decatur Island, I spotted what I thought were dorsal fins in the distance. Fumbling for my 500mm camera, I headed outside onto a viewing deck and aimed. Sure enough, there were about four to six Transient orcas amongst a large flock of seagulls. The orcas had made a kill and were milling around quite a bit while the seagulls were feeding on the scraps. The ecnounter was quick. Soon, the ferry rounded the corner of Decatur and the orcas were out of sight. I went through my photos back inside and identified the orcas as the T035's. The matriline is made up of T035 (the matriarch, born around 1970), her daughter T035A, and two grandchildren; T035A1 (born in 2010) and T035A2 (born in 2013). It is possible that the two T034's were also there.

T035A, a female born in 1998.

On October 26th, some friends and I headed out on their boat to look for some cetaceans. Hearing reports of a humpback whale (there were a lot more than just one!), we headed North and soon spotted a lone whale near Gooch Island. This individual was very unique and one that I had never seen before. Its dorsal fin had a single large notch out of the top and when it fluked I did not recognize the tail, though it was backlit. I called this individual Lone HB #1 for this encounter.

Lone HB #1 with its notched dorsal fin.

The underside of lone HB #1's tail fluke.

While he or she was on a deep dive, we gazed over toward Moresby Island and were excited to see TWO MORE humpbacks! We headed on over and I was able to identify one of the individuals as MMY0024, but I'm not sure who the other was. The two whales were very synchronized in their behaviors, often surfacing, breathing, and fluking side by side. They even played in some kelp together. I called these two HB Pair #1 for this encounter.

MMY0024 and. . .

. . . the other individual of HB Pair #1.

While on one of their deep dives, ANOTHER humpback far off in the distance toward Pender Island breached. Since the breach was far away, the sound of the impact did not reach us for a few seconds, but when it did it sounded like a clap of thunder. We headed over to the area where the humpback breached to find TWO OTHER humpbacks! It was HB Pair #2, and I identified one of them as Split Fin BCZ0298. These two were also quite synchronized.

The unknown individual (left) and Split Fin BCZ0298 (right).

The underside of unknown individual's flukes.

Then, behind us, THREE MORE humpbacks appeared. I believe that one of them was the one that breached, as these three were the most active of all the humpbacks we saw on this day. I labeled them as HB Trio and was able to identify all three of them; MMY0028, Split Fluke BCX1068, and MMX0007. I had never seen humpbacks behave like these three did. They were socializing, wrestling, breaching, pec slapping, tail slapping, cartwheeling, kelping, aerial scanning, tail waving, lunging, rolling, etc for our entire encounter with them! Later that night and over the next few days, a friend recorded humpback songs over a hydrophones off of San Juan Island and I wonder now if the songs were coming from one of the Trio members. They seemed to almost be competing and showing behavior that I would expect to see in Hawaii. . .

MMY0028.

Split Fluke BCX1068.

MMX0007.

HB Trio!

Split Fluke plays with kelp, draping it over his/her dorsal fin.

Split Fluke in mid pectoral fin slap while playing with kelp.

Split Fluke!

Just one of the many breaches from this whale!

Split Fluke cartwheels!

While waiting for the Trio to re-surface from a deep dive, ANOTHER humpback popped up close by but remained dissociated with the Trio. I was not able to identify this whale, but labeled him/her Lone HB #2. This whale was the ninth humpback we had seen that day. Never before had I seen so many humpbacks in such a small area (between Gooch, Moresby, Pender, and Stuart Island).

Lone HB #2.

Eventually, HB Pair #1 joined up with the Trio and together they started heading up Swanson Channel. Lone HB #1 stayed by Gooch Island, and Lone HB #2 stayed close to the Moresby Island shoreline. We never saw HB Pair #2 after our first encounter with them. Hands down one of my best humpback encounters ever!

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