Make My Day...T65A! A Transient Orca Whale Family of Five!

With 13 hopeful passengers and four extra crew riding along...(a lot of my co-workers can't stand the thought of "missing something")....we leave the dock right at noon.  It's a leisurely trip up San Juan Channel.  As we stop to admire Yellow Island a group of three or more Harbor porpoise race toward us and right past the side of the boat!  Good omen?

Yes, I guess so!  News of the T-65A transient whales arrives via the marine radio. The menu for a Transient orca whale features strictly meat items like those Harbor porpoise that raced past us, or sea lions, or sometimes unlucky whales!  They have made a "kill" and are stalled out, not moving toward us exactly, but not moving away either.  Here we go!

It's a long ride across Boundary Pass, up Navy Channel, and then right through Active Pass, to Georgia Strait.  We can see Vancouver, B.C. in the distance, way across the strait.  It's still more motoring north....but two dots (whale watch boats) appear ahead of us.

The T-65A family consists of T-65A, mom, and her four off spring.  The newest member of the group is little, very little!  Fist sighted on March 27, 2014 in these waters we know this calf is at least 8 feet in length and more than 400 lbs.  The other thing we can tell by observing is...it's really active and pretty good at dashing between siblings and back to the job of following mom.

That's T65-A5 right behind mom!

There is a lot of social action taking place today and we are fortunate enough to see it.  During this encounter we witness porpoise swimming, a back breach, a few roll overs, a good cartwheel and many tail slaps.  The calf always wound up popping up around mom or siblings!

   And...here's a "peek-a-boo" from the youngest member of the family...T-65A5!  What a kid!

                       

        Hey....am I imagining that...or is there a little "whale wave goodbye" going on here?

Yes, a long run up into these northern waters to see the T65A's and guess what?  Just as long a run home....so we are on our way.  We take a little different route going south and travel down Georgia Strait to Saturna Island and East Point to one of our favorite wildlife spots: Boiling Reef.

The tide is cooperating and the reef is boiling with tidal exchange currents.  Perfect!  The Steller sea lions and Harbor seals are hauled out on the reef, but the Bonaparte's Gulls are covering the water looking for plankton and small schooling fish.

Bonaparte's Gulls

These are seasonal visitors, gracing us each Spring and Fall due to their migrational path.  Take a look at those sporty outfits!  Once the breeding season arrives they trade in relatively plain grey feathers and pale pink legs for the dashing black cap and bright orange leggings.   The birds are now on their way north to Alaska and northwestern Canada.  There they will nest in pine trees along rivers and lakes.

The Bonaparte's are the smallest of the gulls we have here, weighing a mere 7 ounces.  It's quite a sight to see 100's of them together taking a break for refueling on their long flight.  The name "Bonaparte's Gull" comes from being a name sake of a leading ornithologist of the 1800's...who was, yes, a relative of none other than Napoleon Bonaparte!  Did he wear a black cap too?  (For the birds, no pocket for a wing.)

Time to take off ourselves and continue our own migration back to Friday Harbor.....