MAIACETUS

Sunday, April 18, 2010

April 7, 2010 Out with Five Star Charters: T30s and dead gray whale at East Sooke

Okay, so I've been so busy catching up visiting with friends in Victoria, Squamish and Saltpsring Island so I'm a little behind with this post but here's some photos from my trip out on Five Star Charters' Fastcat on April 7. The weather wasn't great and, although there had been a sighting of 'Transient' mammal eating killer whales earlier that day, by the time we got on the water a couple of hours had passed so it was difficult to re-find the group. Fortunately there were a few boats on the water so we spread out on a search. We travelled east across the Victoria waterfront towards Oak Bay and then headed south in the Strait of Juan De Fuca making a line towards Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.

Shortly after we arrived at Race Rocks to take a look at the sea lions and harbour seals we got a call that one of the other vessels had re-sighted the group. The five killer whales were milling around outside of Becher Bay, off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, with plenty of seagulls diving amongst them suggesting they were feeding. We observed the group of T30s and T172 for a short while and then headed over to the nearby coastline of East Sooke Park where a dead gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) had washed up a couple of days prior. The whale likely died of starvation; it is one of six gray whales that have died in Salish Sea waters recently (See Cascadia Research page reporting on five gray whales that died in Puget Sound). So today's group of whale watchers started out with a rough and cold search but their trip ended with a sighting of a group of Transient killer whales and a dead gray whale... an interesting day indeed!

T30B a female born in 1993

T30C a juvenile estimated to be born in 2005

T172, 21 year old female who often travels with the T30s

Tail fluke!

T30, the female matriarch of the T30s who is estimated to be born at least in 1967

T30A, a 24 year old male travelling with T30C his younger sibling

Transient chin!

T30B

T30A

T30C

Above 3 photos: the dead gray whale, with a curious crowd, that washed up on the beach at East Sooke Regional Park. We are seeing the underside of this whale, the jaw is to the left and tail to right

T30A

T30A's tail fluke: the tail flukes on mature males curl under as you can see here

T30C

T30A

Side flop!

Above 2 photos: milling transients

Above 2 photos: just as we were leaving a Bald Eagle flew overhead checking out the feeding group of whales

Friday, April 16, 2010

April 2010: Back from the Gulf of Mexico... more photos from life as an MMO

I'm back in Victoria between rotations working as a Marine Mammal Observer on seismic survey ships in the Gulf Of Mexico. My last rotation was much more interesting biologically than our December/January rotation which was likely due to much better weather conditions and the fact that we were in some shallower waters. We had many more marine mammal and migrating bird sightings especially during the last couple of weeks. Some highlights of marine mammal sightings included: Atlantic Spotted dolphins (Stenalla frontalis), Pan-Tropical Spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata), Short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), Melon-headed whales (Pepanocephala electra) and Spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris). One of the bird highlights of the trip included my first sighting of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus); a beautiful bird with a long forked tail and a pink belly. A very interesting sighting indeed!

Our ride to work

The Helicopter airport

Heading to the helicopter

Onboard and waiting to depart

View of the landing strip

Heading out to the Gulf from Galveston, TX

Galveston, TX

Flying over the Gulf of Mexico

Our lead MMO on the lookout for marine life en route

Helicopter Landing Officer coming to let us out after landing on the ship

Additional passengers often join us: a white winged dove (Zenaida asiatica)

Above 3 photos: sunset at sea

Starboard bridge wing

Welcome to my 'office'

Prothonotary warbler (Prothonotaria citrea)

Our CPR Annie hard at work!

Above 3 photos: Atlantic spotted dolphins, 16 joined us for 45 minutes one day

Hard at work! Actually, we were between watches so I took in some spring sun in the Gulf of Mexico

One of the chase boats coming to get some equpment from us

Spinner dolphin bowriding

Crew change day...the first helicopter landing on the helideck

Above 3 photos: then our helicopter landed and we were done our five weeks at sea!

Heading back into Galveston for breaktime!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

January 26, 2010 T30s and T172 still in the Strait of Juan De Fuca today

This morning I received a call from Mark that he spotted a group of killer whales in the Strait of Juan De Fuca again. Although he wasn't sure who the animals were he had a feeling it was the same group we saw yesterday and invited me join him for his 1 pm whale watching trip with Prince Of Whales.

We left Victoria harbour and headed south towards Race Rocks Ecological reserve and then west in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. It ended up being quite the search and we travelled mid-strait as far west as Sheringham Point on Vancouver Island. The conditions were good for spotting but we still had a bit of a tricky time finding the animals especially as it was over 2 hours since they were last seen from the Victoria waterfront. At one point in the trip I thought I saw a male dorsal fin going down but doubted myself because there were so many logs and other debris in the water. Shortly after we turned around in the strait to head back to the east Mark spotted blows to the south of us and they were roughly in the area where I thought I saw a male's dorsal fin.

We headed towards them and sure enough it was the T30s and T172 again and when we arrived we noticed they were lunging around a harbour seal. We were expecting to see the poor thing become lunch but after about 15 minutes of the females lunging around the seal they left and joined T30A who'd been travelling away from them to the west. That was a very lucky seal indeed! It was a great sighting and we were very lucky to see the group again despite especially since it took a while to find them!