T68s

Transient orcas
T68s?
Ft. Flagler
Admiralty Inlet
Dec. 12, 2009
Photo by Garrett Bradford

Dec.12
I was in the white Glasply (Quya) that you saw over by Marrowstone. We were heading towards Port Townsend when I saw a huge splash way off in the distance. I saw just enough black and white to know it was an Orca. I started to see more fins coming out of the water and I thought they might be headed right at me. I killed the engine and raised the outdrive hoping they'd pass right by me. I don't know if that is necessary but I'm a hunter, so I'm thinking smaller and quieter. In hind sight I guess I should have turned the depth finder off. Do they hear that thing? (most likely!)
It was quiet for a few minutes until a large sea lion appeared just to my stern. It was acting strange, doing a lot of rolling and figure eights. We watched that lone dance for a few more minutes and then all of a sudden, Orcas everywhere! There was one very large one, two or three smaller adults and at least two very small ones. I snapped a lot of shots (see photo) when it dawned on me that my camera takes video ( click here for two great videos). At first I thought the sea lion and the whales were sharing the same bounty (our whales don't eat mammals, right?). My girlfriend thought they were all playing but I started thinking that we might have lucked into some transients preparing a family meal. I never saw a kill, but they all took turns coming up right next to the poor sea lion, even the babies. I don't know how long they usually take to make the kill. I know it only takes about a minute on NatGeo. Could we have been watching a hunter's education course for the youngsters? Eventually it quieted down and since we were drifting toward shore, I fired the boat up and headed towards Port Townsend. I looked back about the time we got half way across the harbor to see a lot of splashing. Maybe we missed the final kill? We saw no sign of them on the way back to Everett. We did see two or three porpoise around Mutiny Bay though.
Garrett Bradford, Everett






Dec. 12
Roger, Heather and Kelli responded to report of orcas near Admiralty Head (as part of the Admiralty Inlet Tidal Power marine mammal monitoring project).We made contactbetween Marrowstone Pt. & Lagoon Pt.. 5-6 orcas, including: a grayish calf and its mother (completely closed and smoothly round saddle); adult male with nicks on upper part of trailing fin (similar position as J1) and tip of fin tilted to left; an adult female with a sizable nick (like J28) in the mid portion of trailing edge of fin; and at least one other juvenile.
Orcas were moving slowly in a group, in no consistent direction, with long (4-6 minutes) dives. After about 1/2 hour of this behavior, we made a set for hydrophone deployment and observed in the distance the orcas becoming surface active, probably attacking a Steller Sea Lion, which is concurrent with later close-up observations. We heard no vocalizations in two hydrophone deployments.
We approached surface active orcas and saw a Steller Sea Lion in their midst, moving slowly back and forth on the surface. We observed the orcas lunging over the sea lion, coming up onto from below numerous times, appearing to be striking it with their bodies. The sea lion stayed on the surface, rolling around, moving back and forth in a small area. After about 20 minutes of this, the sea lion found our boat and stayed very near it (within 50 ft. and closer at times) while the orcas circled the area. We observed no blood or obvious injuries on the sea lion.
We left the scene to deliver Kelli to shore and returned 45 minutes later with Roger Slade's camera and large video camera. The orcas were milling a few miles away, near Fort Flagler on the north end of Marrowstone Island.We photographed them with the point and shoot camera and the video camera. We did a transect on our way to the Marrowstone haul out, where we counted 12 Stellers. We saw two more Steller's near the orcas in the vicinity of Fort Flagler.
Heather Harding, Chimacum

Dec. 12
Tonight (12/12), I went down to Marrowstone Point. From about 3:30 to 4:00 pm there were four Stellers spy hopping just west of the point. I was sure they knew an orca was around. I watched and waited and watched the sea lions, they were apparently nervous, judging from the constant checking of surrounding waters. I've seen this behavior before. Five more sea lions came in from the Whidbey side, over from about Partridge Point. All of the sea lions kept spy hopping, stretching out as far as you can imagine a sea lion can get up out of the water to look around at stuff.The water was pretty calm. I just knew some whales would show up - dang. Nope. None. As it grew darker, the sea lions milled around off the north end of the island, joining up. I imagine others, on seeing them might have thought they were whales from a distance. The sea lions, sticking their heads way out of the water looked like male whale dorsals. Think whales ever confuse these as other whales? How would we ever know. How could we ever know.
Whaleless on Marrowstone, Ron Hirschi

Dec. 12
We arrived at Ft Casey at about 3:45, already getting dark. Boy those Stellers were noisy! I have one photo with 13 in it, we were able to count two other groups to total at least 18th. If there'd been nobody on the beach, I wonder if they'd have hauled out. There were a few people by the water's edge watching/listening to them. Quite a sight. We looked for blows to the west, but didn't see anything, but with such a steller smorgasbord, perhaps they'll be back.
Jill Hein, Coupeville

Dec. 12
2040: Transient calls in the dark, dark night on OrcaSound hydrophones (NW San Juan Island).
Val Veirs, OrcaSound/The Whale Museum, San Juan Island

Dec.12
We received a call that the Victoria Clipper had sighted orcas off Admiralty Head, 9:30 am, possibly J pod. We headed out to Admiral's Cove, then Ft. Casey, and found orcas at 10:45 am, between Lagoon Pt, Whidbey Island, and S. Marrowstone Island, milling back & forth. We counted what looked like ~5 orcas.
They ended up heading over to Ft. Flagler, then milling back and forth just N. of Ft. Flagler for over 3 hours. We watched them from Ft. Casey, While Roger Slade, Heather Harding, & Kelli Stingle from Pt. Townsend responded in a boat. They observed the orcas tossing a Steller sea lion around, the Steller using their boat for shelter for awhile, making things pretty exciting! We'll hopefully have a more detailed report from them later - but we observed 12 - 14 Steller sea lions right next to shore at Ft. Casey, behaving very defensively - lots of heads up and roaring going on, and mainly staying in large groups (I can't blame them)!
We watched the orcas from our distant perch - milling back and forth, a lot of lunging and splashing going on from noon - 2:15 or so, then more milling. We left at about 2:45 pm, Roger called at 3:15 pm to report the orcas were in Port Townsend Bay, still milling around.

Dec. 12
We received a call from Steve Holmes at 10:55 am, reporting ~9 orcas sighted off Ledgewood Beach, W. Whidbey Island, first heading north, then milling.

Dec. 12
After earlier helping us try to find the orcas from Admiral's Cove, Sandra Pollard & Dick Snowberger called at 11:15 am from Lagoon Pt. to report they had spotted the orcas between Lagoon Pt. & Marrowstone Island, heading north.

Dec. 12
We received a call at 11:10 am from Greg Davis, on S. Admirals Cove, reporting 3 orcas - 1 large fin, 1 med. fin & 1 small fin, between Ft. Flagler and Marrowstone Pt, heading north.