August 24- M/V Kestrel- 10:00 am
We left the dock at Friday Harbor and East towards a report of a few transient orcas near Anacortes. As we cruised along we kept an eye out for some other wildlife and came across some harbor porpoise and a bald eagle. We made it to the report of orcas on the North side of Cypress Island. It was the sibling pair of T65A3, who is 11 years old, and T65A4, who is 7 years old. These two siblings have been hanging out on their own for a few days. This type of behavior is not uncommon among the transient orca community. The young pair will probably rejoin their mother sometime in the next few days to a week. The whales were milling back and forth and at one point we got to watch them as they harassed a Steller’s Sea Lion. Bigg’s killer whales will sometimes eat Steller’s sea lions but on this particular sighting they just messed around with him a bit. It was a fun and eventful day out on Kestrel!
Naturalist Rachel