T77A Biggs and Stellar Kill is a bit misleading for my title. We started out thinking we had T49C as a lone male. After we got home and looking at our ID books, it was T77A with a similar but different looking nick on his dorsal fin.
That is not the misleading part though. The whale did not kill a Stellar Sea Lion. Instead, the Stellar had a large skate and was shredding it and swallowing chunks of the fish. Some of the pics you can see the snout of the skate and its eyes — other pics you can see blood drops flying through the air. Sea Gulls were dive-bombing for leftover chunks of meat from the skate.
We also saw some Harbor Seals and Stellar Sea Lions on the rocks. I tried to capture shots of some Bonaparte Gulls and a distant shot of a Common Loon. At Whale Rocks we saw a beautiful pair of Bald Eagles. The female is on the right side in the pics, and she is slightly larger which is how to know male from female. They look the same, but she is larger than her mated male.
It was a pretty chilly day today but so beautiful seeing T77A Biggs and Stellar Kill.
Some do not know what a Skate is. Here is a quick comparison of a skate versus a Stingray. Skates have a shorter tail and without a stinger barb. Skates lay eggs while Stingrays gives birth to live young.
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