Lots of Life Among the Islands
So much marine life to see today, there was Orca & Lots more MarineLife. As a result, I had no shortage of pictures to share with everyone. We left the dock thinking I would head north towards Vancouver to see a pod of Killer Whales in the Strait of Georgia. A Humpback Whale is nearby in the Strait of Juan de Fuca which we later spent some time viewing. However, one of the boats spotted a pod of Orca at the bottom of San Juan Island, so that is where we headed.
Stellar Sea Lions on the way to see the Orca looking majestic as ever. These are massive 2500lb creatures. The pod was the T49A’s, which includes an adult male and a youngster too.
Killer Whales in Mackaye Harbor
We observed them as they made their way into Mackaye Harbor at the bottom of Lopez Island. I attempted to spot a pair of Tufted Puffin we have seen in the area, but I could not locate them.
Seabirds in abundance
Bald Eagles could be seen on all three tours today, Rhinoceros Auklet, Cormorant, a family of Canada Geese among other seabirds including several beautiful Black Oystercatchers.
Harbor Seals, including one getting eaten. Harbor Porpoise and a Humpback Whale. The Humpback is known as Scratchy. The underside of their tail fluke is like a fingerprint; they are all different.
Playful Creatures
On the third tour, the T49A’s were playing with crab pot buoys and dragging the pots around taking the buoys for a plunge out of sight for minutes at a time. I wonder what the fisherman is going to think about his pots being nowhere near where he left them. These are mischievous creatures. Another naturalist captain said she has pictures of this family of orca dragging pots around from as far back as 2014. All orca are playful. Some are just born with an abundance of mischief.
Left Overs
There are a few photos of NOAA doing their thing. They collected the leftovers after a kill and shared it with us. In the pictures, you see three of them with body parts. One photo is of a set of lungs. Another is of the stomach, and the last is of the rib cage. They believed it to be that of a harbor porpoise. Orcas discard the gut sack and intestines. I have shared pics before of them dragging seal intestines around by their dorsal fins.
This day with Orca & Lots more MarineLife was a pretty special day for everyone.
Check out some of my other photoblog pages at Whale Tales.
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