orcas
Today we took a break from the ducks and went to visit some whales. We joined our flickr friend Annette, and set out to find some Gray whales and Orca whales.

male
It was a beautiful, sunny day with calm, smooth water. This huge male T87 Orca made this red boat get out of his way. He was swimming along with two other Orcas.

more
We probably saw 12+ Orcas and followed them for about an hour.

party
It was an Orca party, everywhere we looked!

Then we set off to find a Gray whale, only to hear that we’d just missed these Orcas ATTACKING a Gray whale named Patch!

gray
We found our own Gray whale and were happy to miss the Patch attack, as it was pretty bad.

amazing
This Gray whale was feeding in the shallow waters, and would come up for air every 3-4 minutes.

tail
We even got to see his tail for a brief moment.

brant
We also saw some Brant geese, a sea lion, a bald eagle, a juvenile bald eagle, some grebes and of course… a few ducks.

When we got home, we heard that the Orcas we had been following had really attacked Patch pretty seriously, and that this was the third known Orcas attack on Gray whales in a week. This is entirely new for Orcas in the area, and troubling for the Gray whales. Here is a news story on the attack (be warned, the video is disturbing).

News story on Orcas attacking Gray whale: http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Orcas-attack-gray-whale-90582659.html

After I told Flapper about the amazing whale watching trip, he made me double-check his pool to make sure there weren’t any Orcas in it.

It was an amazing day, and we hope to go whale watching again really soon.