San Juan Whale Watching

What looked to be a pretty dismal day (rain and wind) turned out to be pretty beautiful.  No whales today, but plenty of interesting wildlife.  Here is a report from JB:

We left the dock with no whales in the area (some of the Residents had been spotted heading west past Sooke). So we headed north in hopes that perhaps we’d luck onto seeing something interesting. And we weren’t disappointed!

In Haro Strait, we spotted a pair of Brown Pelicans! For those who know the birds of this area, this is a somewhat rare sighting. Later in the trip we saw two other Brown Pelicans for a total of four sightings. The flat calm water made it easy to see anything moving on the water, and as the rain stopped and the fog lifted, we came across quite a few Dall’s Porpoises near Turn Point. There were porpoises rooster-tailing, and one large group (8-10) approached the boat and we saw two calves! They were so incredibly tiny, and it was the first time I’ve ever seen calves that small.

As we watched them swim past the bow with our engines shut down, we then saw another unusual sighting. A seagull was trying to eat something, and as we drifted closer, we saw that it was a hunk of animal tissue. At first we thought maybe some blubber, so we got the net out and scooped it up for closer examination. Lots of adipose tissue, some muscle tissue and skin. So we double bagged it and will turn it over to Amy Traxler (Assistant Research Curator at the Whale Museum) to examine during the necropsies they are doing on Tuesday. Our suspicion is that it is part of a seal that was lunch for some transients! So it just goes to show that you never really know what you will encounter on a trip!

John Boyd (JB), Marine Naturalist, Western Prince