Orca Watcher

Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a time every year I take a moment to remember the Southern Resident killer whales we've lost over the previous 12 months. You can find all my previo...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/11/day-of-dead-11th-annual-tribute.html

With 2020 in no way shaping up as planned, with two cancelled vacations we found ourselves ready for a little getaway after more than 6 months without leaving San Juan Island. Only interested in ...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/10/a-getaway-to-okanogan-county.html

As this unconventional year has gone on, the motivation to blog has been low, even though spending time in nature and the outdoors has been my greatest solace. This has been my longest hiatus eve...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/08/end-of-august-check-in.html

While it's been hard to find the motivation to blog in the last month, it hasn't been hard to find the motivation to go out into nature. Not only is April one of my favorite months on San Juan I...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/04/and-world-keeps-turning.html

Word came in Monday afternoon that J-Pod was in Boundary Pass, but instead of taking their typical route southwest towards Turn Point, they veered towards San Juan Channel. With the sun shining ...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/03/march-9-j-pod-in-san-juan-channel.html

After a sunny start to 2020, it has been a very wet and windy year so far! This weekend we finally got a break in the weather, so we took advantage to get out on our boat to go birding in Griffi...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/02/winter-water-birds.html

With the end of 2019, so too came the end of my first decade tracking my bird year lists. While I traveled a lot throughout the year, I didn't go as far as some years, with just three states/pro...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2020/01/end-of-one-year-list-beginning-of.html

Normally I associate this time of year with bad weather, short days, and hunkering down inside, but the last week has proven that wildlife in this region can be epic regardless of the season! O...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/12/abundant-wildlife-at-end-of-december.html

Things have been changing so much and so quickly in the Salish Sea; the transformations are astounding. When I first started spending time up here 20 years ago, both humpback and transient kille...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/11/november-10-memorable-day-on-water.html

Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), where every year I take a moment to remember the Southern Resident killer whales we've lost over the previous year. You can find all my previous Da...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/11/day-of-dead-10th-annual-tribute.html

With all the education and advocacy efforts that I'm involved in year round now, there no longer seems to be a "slow season" to my year. Even as the days start to get shorter in the late autumn ...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/10/fall-in-san-juan-islands.html

On September 4th we headed out on a whale watch out of Telegraph Cove, and with lots of recent whale reports and flat-calm waters I was hopeful for a great trip. Now I have been on a lot of whal...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/09/northern-vancouver-island-part-2-whale.html

The first week of September has been marked off all year as a reset, recharge, and rejuvenate week spent on northern Vancouver Island. With various stresses having built up over the preceding mo...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/09/northern-vancouver-island-part-1.html

Well, my aforementioned blog post about an epic Bigg's killer whale encounter will have to wait, because on July 5, after 59 days of waiting, the Southern Residents finally returned to the inlan...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/07/july-5-return-of-residents.html

It still feels very surreal that we've just had our first June on record with no Southern Resident killer whales in inland waters. June used to be a highlight of the year because of the abundanc...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/07/june-month-full-of-biggs-killer-whale.html

Today I attended the second meeting of year two for Governor Inslee's Orca Task Force. The first meeting of 2019, which occurred in March and which I was unable to attend, happened when most of ...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/06/year-2-of-orca-task-force-june-3-meeting.html

2018 was the first year on record with no Southern Residents in the inland waters in the month of May. This year, J-Pod was seen a few days early in the month, but there has been no sign of them...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/05/may-biggs-killer-whale-encounters.html

For years I've been wanting to head to the outer coast of Washington to catch the spring shorebird migration in and around Grays Harbor. This year, we finally made it happen! While we missed the...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/05/may-11-12-spring-shorebird-migration.html

Sunday, April 14th dawned a somewhat blustery and gray day, but that didn't stop a group of intrepid bird-watchers for heading out on a excursion with Maya's Legacy Whale Watching out of Snug H...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/04/april-14-birding-trip-with-mayas-legacy.html

We recently got our new boat (acquired last fall) launched, which means new photographic opportunities have opened up again as we get back out on the water! On our first test drive we went birdi...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/04/march-26-and-april-1-with-j-pod.html

On March 16 we headed out on the water with Maya's Legacy from Friday Harbor. There were no whale reports but it was a beautiful day, and with many groups around over the previous week hopes we...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/03/march-16-t49as-and-t101s-t2cs.html

Last weekend we headed off island to run some errands. I thought it would be a ferry ride like any other, but it turned into a very memorable one: after 18 years of riding these ferries regularl...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/03/march-9-birding-semiahmoo.html

Last weekend we headed out on the water with Maya's Legacy on a beautiful day. With heavy winds to the north, we headed south down San Juan Channel and made a stop at Whale Rocks, my favorite s...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/03/march-3-double-header-t46s-and-t90st101s.html

While whales have been around occasionally, I hadn't seen any since the end of October, and for an orcaholic like myself, full whale withdrawal was beginning to set in. I was able to get out on ...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/02/february-16-t69ds-and-t90s-plus-why-i.html

With so many microclimates and microhabitats in the San Juan Islands, there are very different places to explore and even different birds to see depending on which island you are on. Because of ...

http://www.orcawatcher.com/2019/01/winter-birding-on-lopez-island.html