[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/8/17, 5:30PM]
Yesterday, Captain Pete and I embarked on a beautiful sunset cruise. It was a beautiful evening. The water as we left Friday Harbor was flat calm and almost looked unreal underneath the orange sunlight of late afternoon. We’ve been having some amazing sunsets with the smoky haze that has covered the islands for a week now. The sun sets as an orange orb each night creating an extraordinary fiery sky.
This is the sky under which we searched for some amazing local wildlife. We started by going south down San Juan Channel towards Cattle Pass. We stopped to see some beautiful pinnipeds lying on Whale Rocks. We saw a bunch of adorable Harbor Seals hauled out on the rocks and next to them we saw the massive Steller Sea Lions. Also hauled out on the rocks, we could hear them growling as a few of the large males tried to all lay in the same spot. These Steller Sea Lions are the largest species of Sea Lions in the world and the males can weigh around a ton! These guys are back early, we usually don’t see them till September, but this group has come back early! These Sea Lions look like the grizzly bears of the sea and definitely sound like them!
Next we continued further south and started our look for cetaceans just on top of Salmon Bank. This is shallow area where a lot of small fish congregate, so it is a good place to find larger animals that feed on those tiny fish. We saw a few porpoises and then a few Minke Whales! Minke Whales are a baleen whale that resides in the Salish Sea year-round. They are about 30 feet long and very speedy. We looked at this one for quite awhile as it corralled a bait ball above the bank and caused all the sea birds to go crazy trying to get in on the fish feast. There were tons of gulls, common murres, and rhinoceros auklets. We even saw one puffin! And a few phalaropes! You probably know about puffins, but phalaropes are just as cool. They are tiny birds that spend most of their time in the deep sea and in the arctic. They are a polyandrous, species which means that the females mate with multiple females and have them build nests to take care of their nests. This is super rare in the animal kingdom!
We had a great time watching the Minke Whale hunt through the swirling birds and even got a chance to go check out the Steller Sea Lions and a Bald Eagle on the way back home to Friday Harbor.
Whale Folks, until next time have a san juanderful day
Erick D.