As the days get shorter and the temperatures are brisk we are still having some fantastic days on the water this fall. This is one of my favorite times of the year because there aren’t as many boats out there, but there are still whales around. We are seeing more humpback whales on a regular basis this fall compared to earlier in the year, as they stage for their migration southward to their wintering waters in Mexico, Central America, or Hawaii. We get humpbacks from all three populations up here. We’ve seen several humpback moms and calves this year, and the young ones have been our most playful humpbacks.
We are also, still seeing plenty of transient (Bigg’s) killer whales, and we have been fortunate enough to see some of the new calves in the T99 pod, and the T36A pod recently! Its always exciting anytime there are new calves born with any of our whales, and the Bigg’s variety of Orcinus orca are having lots of babies these days. When times are good they reproduce at a faster rate. We were even lucky enough to be the first to find and document a new calf in the T36A pod, near Whale Rocks, Lummi Island on November 12! That was one of the most exciting finds of the year! From our first encounter with the calf it looked very much like T36A was probably the mother, but we will have to wait for the official determination from the research community on that. It usually takes a few encounters with a calf to be sure who the mother is. Enjoy a few pictures from some of our recent trips out on the water. Some of the whale IDs are noted in the photos. Photographer/ Naturalist Bart Rulon
