Another weekly recap is upon us! This report will cover whales and wildlife that we saw out on our tours from August 24th – August 30th. As summer begins to wind down and fall is slowly creeping in, we are gearing up to potentially see some shifts with our whales and wildlife. Winter birds may start to wander in and more steller sea lions will be showing up, for example. We’ll continue to enjoy the possibility of seeing whales until the end of our whale watch season on October 25th!
Bigg’s killer whales seen on our trips over the past week include: the T36s (6), T49As (6), T65A5, the T60s (4), T99s traveling with T37A4 (6), the T100 trio, and the T101s (currently a duo), making for 28 individuals. Looks like T137A Jack has broken away from grandma and the rest of the T36Bs. Where he’ll show up next in the Salish Sea is anyone’s guess!
For our trips, it continued to be a little lean on the baleen whale front this last week, mostly due to orca sightings and other abundant wildlife nearby. Our token humpback encounter was with BCY1157 (no nickname, currently). We will have to see if any individuals switch up their feeding areas between the Fraser River delta and west of Victoria to pay us a visit near the islands next week!
As far as other wildlife sightings this week: the single sea otter continues to be sighted out near San Juan Island; we made a few trips out to Smith Island where we were lucky enough to see some Tufted Puffins–who are starting the molting process, in some cases! They are losing their tufts and will eventually lose the white feathers that surround their face with the goal of “going drab” to blend back in with their environment as they prepare to head out to open ocean until late April/early May, next year! Common Murre fledglings are EVERYWHERE right now. Their higher pitched gurgling begging calls as they pester their father’s for food can be heard on almost every stretch of water around the San Juans. We’ve notice a bit of a shift in the way that bald eagles are using the environment, in that some have potentially already pushed eastward toward rivers and streams as they wait for salmon to make their way up river for spawning purposes. It’s always a bittersweet feeling to watch the season start to change–we enjoy what might be coming to spend time here with us but will miss summer as it keeps slipping right on by.
As always, we look forward to seeing what next week has to offer us!
