Whale Watching Report

The new L-pod calf, L111!

The new calf with mom L47, Marina.

The weather was perfect for whale watching today. Our morning trip started out with us heading south through Rosario Straits. As we cruised toward Hein Bank to look for whales we spotted two tufted puffins along the way!! Just as Captain Carl was circling around to take another look at them he got a call that a boat had spotted orcas over by Deception Pass. So we turned around and cruised over there quickly. We got on scene with the orcas just northeast of Deception Pass heading north. It was a portion of L-pod and they were split up into two groups. The first group we visited included Racer, L72, Fluke, L105, Nigel, L95, Nugget, L55, and Lapsis, L103, among others. They appeared to be in a resting mode because they were bunched up pretty closely together. The next group we visited included Marina, L47, and her brand new baby L111, who was born just yesterday!!! Many other L-pod orcas were also in this group. There movements seemed to be focused around the new calf. At one point L111 turned around and swam south and all the other orcas swam right back to get the little one pointed back in the right direction, heading north again. We got some great looks at L111. One orca, bringing up the rear, did multiple tail slaps in a row as he approached the group with the new calf. Next we peeled off to look at Bird Rocks where we saw some harbor seals, lots of cormorants, black oystercatchers and pigeon guillemots. As we pulled away we also spotted a bald eagle perched on a reef marker, watching two seals fighting below him in the water. Next we cruised over to watch the orcas again at Guemes Island. By then the two groups had merged into one larger group and they were still going up and down pretty close together. One orca spy-hopped for us. As we said goodbye to L-pod a bald eagle flew right out in front of us. For our afternoon trip we cruised north to find the same L-pod group at the north end of Lummi Island. In 8 years of doing this I've never seen any of the resident orcas swim northward in the Rosario Straits/Bellingham Channel area like they did today. It must have had something to do with the new calf. We had fantastic views of the L-pod group all bunched up together for the entire afternoon trip. We saw lots of the new calf again, and the lighting was fantastic on the orcas as the sun was going down. On the way back home we made a few stops to look at bald eagles and one bald eagle nest. What an exciting day for us and an exciting day for L-pod. Naturalist Bart Rulon