September 30th - Transient Orca in Stuart Channel!
Leaving the harbour on the 30th we had an early report of orca in Stuart channel travelling northbound towards Nanaimo so we left in search of them hoping that they were still in our area. We ended up finding these guys just off of yellowpoint travelling together towards Dodds narrows. Arriving on scene we found two large dorsal fins and two smaller ones travelling together. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a weird group of orca. We had two members of the T049As present: T049A1 Noah and T049A2 Jude. With them were two members of the T060s: T060D Onca and T060E Lynx. Usually when we find orca travelling it will be in family groups but it’s not uncommon for young males to go off on their own for a while. Jude was seen travelling with a different bachelor pod earlier in the year in fact. This was the first time we’ve seen this particular group travelling together though. They are all male with Noah being the oldest at 20 years old, making him likely fully grown. Onca is the next oldest at 17 then Jude at 14 and Lynx at 13. This means that Noah is the only one who has reached full size and the others are all at various stages of their growth, although all of them seem to have at least started the process of sprouting. Sprouting is what it’s called as the dorsal fin of a male orca begins to get taller as they go through puberty.
Interestingly, when we saw these 4 travelling together they were staying in two groups of two. The separation seemed to be by age and not family groups because it was Noah and Onca travelling in one group and Jude and Lynx in the other!
It was really fun to watch these animals travelling trough the waves and we got some really good looks at them. There are some amazing photos from the day taken by Naturalists Cheyenne Brewster and Rebeka Pirker below.
T060D Onca travelling. Photo by naturalist Beka.
Shot of Noah swimming away after a close pass by the boat. Photo by naturalist Beka.
Photo by naturalist Beka.
Photo by naturalist Beka.
Photo by naturalist Beka.
Onca (Front) and Noah (back) travelling close together. Photo by naturalist Beka.
Noah! Photo by naturalist Beka.
Some harlequin ducks! The brown ones are the females and the colourful one is the male! Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.
Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.
T060E Lynx! Check out those notches in the dorsal. The bottom one is new and isn’t shown in the photo ID catalogue. Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.
Jude (front) and Lynx (back) travelling close together. Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.
Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.
A big male sellers sea lion amongst the California sea lions. Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.
Being yelled at by a California sea lion! Photo by naturalist Cheyenne.