J-Pod
Until this last week, I have been saying the Southern Resident Killer Whales have only been here a total of 7 days for the entire year. Only some of them have been here. Today marks J-Pod’s third day foraging for salmon in our waters. The pink salmon are running now, but pinks are the least food value fish among our five species of salmon.
On the morning tour, we saw J27 Blackberry, J22 Oreo, and J38 Cookie. Cookie is a 16-year old male. He has four more years of growth till he is considered an adult with a 6 foot tall dorsal fine and turns 20. The lighting was not so good on the morning tour, and fortunately, it was much better for long distant shots on the afternoon/evening tour.
On the afternoon/evening tour we were able to see and identify J22 Oreo, J38 Cookie, J26 Mike, J16 Slick and a few others I was unable to ID. J16 Slick is the matriarch, I believe, since granny’s death three years ago.
Minke Whales
Our guests saw Minke whales on both tours with a couple of unusual events that I was not able to capture in a photo. While approaching the Tufted Puffin colony, I saw a whale leap out of the water as a dolphin does traveling fast. My first thought was Orca, but the fin was not tall enough, so I knew it was minke. I stopped the boat, and we watched for a couple of minutes until it came up for air again. I was hoping for another leap with my camera ready. Later while viewing J-pod, another minke breached 5 or 6 times, but we were too far away. That is only the third time I have heard of Minke whales breaching. Four years ago, I was able to capture a minke breaching while I was doing 30 knots and still a half-mile or more away. Those images were blurry due to the circumstances.
More Whales
We encountered a pair of Humpback Whales on our way to the Orca in the evening. One has had a rough life, with the end of its fluke cut off and a couple of other bad tears.
A couple of the Orca were breaching; one was Oreo the other I am not sure. The first set of pics did not get into focus, but the second set was ok. Another whale we can easily ID is J47 Notch. If you look at the back of his fin, there is a rectangular-shaped notch. It was a great day with all the marine life and J-Pod’s Third Day Foraging.
Red-necked Phalarope
There were hundreds of Red-necked Phalarope seen today, more like thousands. I don’t remember seeing this many of them in years past. They are a migratory bird, breeding in the arctic regions and travel to our area in the summer. Their sex roles are reversed from other species. The females fight each other for mating rights with a male. The male incubates the eggs and cares for the brood. I have read that the female may even leave the first batch of eggs with the male and go mate with another male and produce another batch of eggs for another male to watch over.
Check out some of my other photoblog pages at Whale Tales.
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