Our 2013 Whale Watch season is off the a great start. We've hosted guests on four Whale Watch tours in the past week and encountered Transient mammal-hunting Orcas on each tour. Today was no exception!
We departed Friday Harbor without any reports of killer whales in the area and were having a great wildlife tour encountering Stellar's sea lions, bald eagles, and harbor seals galore. We were about to leave Spieden Channel to head North into Haro Strait when (to our surprise!!), I looked towards Roche Harbor on the port side on the vessel and holy cow! WHALES! The T65s and T49B surprised us all! We observed this small pod of six traveling east down Spieden Channel, on the northern end of San Juan Island. We witnessed tons of fast moving feeding behavior and I even thought I saw a glimpse of a porpoise being pushed around by T49B.
This time of year, we most often see Transient (also now known as Bigg's) mammal-hunting Orcas, which travel is small family pods and can sometimes be difficult to spot. When we do though, it's very exciting!
-Naturalist Kevin