A Welcomed Surprise
Watching transients under sail (credit: Jeanne Hyde)
Today my classmates and I were heading into Mitchell Bay after our first full day at sea when our Captain, Todd Shuster, noticed a collection of whale watching boats off in the distance. We took the opportunity to turn around and were rewarded by seeing a group of transient killer whales by Sidney Island. There was one male orca, which we later identified as T40, with four females or juveniles. We have not identified the other four whales yet. Males are typically easier to identify because they have larger dorsal fins, but T40 is especially easy to pick out because the tip of his dorsal fin is bent over.
It was a very exciting hour watching the whales and the boats around them. A few times the whales took a view of the world above them by spy hopping and jumped into the air a couple of times as well. After the initial exhilaration, we began to confer about the behavioral state of the whales. We were unable to deploy the hydrophones in time to record any sounds. It was a good learning experience to enable us to be more proficient in organizing equipment so that next time we come across whales we will be able to record all forms of data. I feel fortunate that on our first full day at sea we came across orcas.
Spyhopping
There are many more comments and pictures about sightings of this group of whales at orcanetwork.org.
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celia
May 10th, 2009 at 20:53
Transients! That is awesome!