Welcome to another weekly breakdown of what we’ve seen out on tour for the week of May 12th – May 18th:
A quick note to say that we had some funky weather patterns this past week that brought lots of wind and some heavy rain into the area. A couple tours were cancelled as a result. If you notice a drop in our personal killer whale sightings, the weather/cancelled trips were a variable to consider in this instance!
Getting on to the Bigg’s killer whales that we did encountered on tours this past week: the T49As (6), T64Bs (4), T65As (4), T90s (4), T124A1, T124A2s (3), and the T124A4s (3) for a total of 25 individuals. I promise my math is not off here, because there was also a new little calf seen with the T124A2s and T124A1 on Sunday. Since both females are technically breeding age females, it will take some time to determine who the mother of this new little one is. But a new T124A baby is awesome news, indeed! Several of our tours spent their encounter time with the T90s and T124A4s who traveled together quite a bit this past week, making TWO visiting into Deer Harbor (Orcas Island) in and among the boats! Some amazing video footage from folks along the docks was posted to social media for anyone interested in seeing them go through this area. It really is astounding just where these whales might pop up!
There definitely seemed to be more humpback whales making their way into the Salish Sea this week, but one individual really stood out, because he seemed to be meandering around the San Juan Islands most days we were on the water. So LOTS of passengers were introduced to humpback whale BCX1795 “Scuttle.” He must have been finding some good eats along the San Juan Island shorelines–and we sure are glad! He’s a pretty awesome humpback whale to get acquainted with, too, because his tail flukes are pretty unique. Overall dark in color, but they also have long white rake marks from orca teeth–an encounter that likely happened when Scuttle was much younger, and one he survived!
Some gray whales are still feeding around Lopez Island and Whidbey Island, with one “mystery” gray whale receiving a CRC designation this week. We were waiting to see if Cascadia Research Collective had this particular whale recorded in their ID catalogs, but it turns out this whale is a newcomer to our area. So, moving forward, this whale will be known as CRC-2702. We have hopes that this individual is finding adequate food in this location and hope he’s packing on the pounds!
Another notable this past week was getting out around Smith Island to see Tufted Puffins and a very rare-to-our-area Horned Puffin! This individual has been in the vicinity the last 4+ seasons but is not always reliably found, so it was really cool to have that “first of year” experience this past weekend.
We’re looking forward to seeing what the next week brings us on the wildlife front!
