This past week we continued to tip our hat to the T65B family– a quartet of Bigg’s killer whales (marine-mammal eaters) who have become steady central Salish Sea visitors, “holding down the fort” for over the past two weeks as they inspect every kelp bed, rock, and nook and cranny for seals and they go. Thanks to this family of four–mom and her three sons–AND her sister’s family, the T65As (family of 5), guests were able to experience killer whales in the wild on most of our tours this past week. Those that didn’t see killer whales had some exceptional encounters with humpback whales. In all, this was a much improved whale watching week when compared with the latter.
Aside from the T65As and T65Bs, Bigg’s killer whale presence on this week’s tours also consisted of a couple encounters with the T46s–four siblings sticking together since their mom and matriarch passed a couple seasons ago. These three families often visit the central Salish Sea in the summer, and with each group having adult males, or adolescent “sprouting” males, they are a delight amongst guests.
Humpback sightings were notably up this week, with many of our encounters taking place in the northern reaches of Haro Strait near Boundary Pass. We encountered humpback whales CRC-18485 Meqe’, CRC-16022 Frankenstein, and CRC-17358 Smiley and her 2025 calf as they were transiting through this area on separate days/evenings; up north in the Strait of Georgia near the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal we had an encounter with four humpbacks as they were feeding: CRC-16926 Poptart, CRC-15258 Divot, CRC-16009 Strike, and CRC-15350 Windy. Another encounter with two humpback whales took place off the southwestern side of San Juan island, and these two humpbacks turned out to be CRC-15971 Hydra, and CRC-21557 the 2022 calf of Alma (no nickname assigned to this individual yet).
BIRD ALERT: We are thoroughly enjoying the seabirds! This is the season in which they are actively bringing forage fish food back to their chicks, so there is a lot of activity happening. We’ve also been able to head out toward Smith Island a couple times to intercept whales out in that direction and have found a Tufted Puffin or two in that location during our transit. See photos for those cute little “sea clowns.”
As always, we are looking forward to seeing what the next week of wildlife sightings is going to bring us!
